Wendell     Phillips 


e  c-r  M  f 


[UNIVERSITY; 


PUBLISHER'S  ADVERTISEMENT. 


Speeches  and  Lectures  have  been  collected 
into  a  volume  at  the  earnest  and  repeated  requests 
of  the  personal  friends  and  the  followers  of  Mr.  Phillips. 
In  committing  them  to  the  Publisher,  he  wrote  :  — 
"  I  send  you  about  one  half  of  my  speeches  which  have 
been  reported  during  the  last  ten  years.  Put  them  into 
a  volume,  if  you  think  it  worth  while.  Four  or  five  of 
them  ('Idols,'  'The  Election,'  'Mobs  and  Education,' 
'Disunion,'  'Progress,')  were  delivered  in  such  circum 
stances  as  made  it  proper  I  should  set  down  before 
hand,  substantially,  what  I  had  to  say.  The  preserva 
tion  of  the  rest  you  owe  to  phonography ;  and  most  of 
them  to  the  unequalled  skill  and  accuracy,  which  almost 
every  New  England  speaker  living  can  attest,  of  my 
friend,  J.  M.  W.  Yerrinton.  The  first  speech,  relating  to 
the  murder  of  Lovejoy,  was  reported  by  B.  F.  Hallett, 
Esq.  As  these  reports  were  made  for  some  daily  or 
weekly  paper,  I  had  little  time  for  correction.  Giving 
them  such  verbal  revision  as  the  interval  allowed,  I  left 
the  substance  and  shape  unchanged.  They  will  serve, 
therefore,  at  least,  as  a  contribution  to  the  history  of  our 
Antislavery  struggle,  and  especially  as  a  specimen  of  the 


"IV  PUBLISHER'S   ADVERTISEMENT. 

method  and  spirit  of  that  movement  which  takes  its  name 
from  my  illustrious  friend,  WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON." 

The  only  liberty  the  Publisher  has  taken  with  these 
materials  has  been  to  reinsert  the  expressions  of  approba 
tion  and  disapprobation  on  the  part  of  the  audience,  which 
Mr.  Phillips  had  erased,  and  to  add  one  or  two  notes  from 
the  newspapers  of  the  day.  This  was  done  because  they 
Avere  deemed  a  part  of  the  antislavery  history  of  the  times, 
and  interesting,  therefore,  to  every  one  who  shall  read 
this  book,  —  not  now  only,  but  when,  its  temporary  pur 
pose  having  been  accomplished  by  the  triumph  of  the 
principles  it  advocates,  it  shall  be  studied  as  an  Ameri 
can  classic,  and  as  a  worthy  memorial  of  one  of  the  ablest 
and  purest  patriots  of  New  England. 


CONTENTS. 


MURDER  OE  LOVEJOY 


LN'S  RIGHTS 
' 

>PINJON       ....... 

\ ' 

SuRRENpER   OF  'SlMS  .  .  .  .  •  •  • 

SIMS  ANNIVERSARY         ...... 

-JML%ILOSOPHY  OF  THE  ABOLITION  MOVEMENT 

REMOVAL  OF  JUDGE  LORING  .  J^  .  .  • 
—THE  BOSTON  MOB  .  .... 

THE  PILGR.IMS        •     /^         •        •     .   • 

LETTER  TO  JUDGE  SHAW  AND  PRESIDENT  WALKER   . 

,,!DOLS 

- — •— 

FERRY 

^  BURIAL'  OF  JOHN  BROWN 

e£ 


WAR- FOR  THE  UNION 
HE  CABINET      . 
.ETTER  TO  THE  TRIBUNE 

^ClISSAINT    L'OuVERTURE      . 
METROFOLlt'AN    POLICE 

"HE  STATE  OF  THS 


THE 


ON  November  7, 1 83  T/lTu  v .  E.  TCrlovejoy  was  shot  by  a  mob  at  Alton,  •) 
Illinois,  while  attempting  to  defend  his  printing-press  from  deshuction.  ) 
When  this  was  known  in  Boston,  William  Ellery  Channing  headed  a 
petition  to  the  Mayor  and  Aldermen,  asking  the  use  of  Faneuil  Hall 
for  a  public  meeting.     The  request  was  refused.     Dr.  Channing  then 
addressed  a  very  impressive  letter  to  his  fellow-citizens,  which  resulted 
in  a  meeting  of  influential  gentleman  at  the  Old  Court  Room.     Reso 
lutions,  drawn  by  Hon.  B.  F.  Hallett,  were  unanimously  adopted,  and 
measures  taken  to  secure  a  much  larger  number  of  names  to  the  peti 
tion.     This  call  the  Mayor  and  Aldermen  obeyed. 

The  meeting  was  held  on  the  8th  of  December,  and  organized,  with 
the  Hon.  Jonathan  Phillips  for  Chairman. 

Dr.  Channing  made  a  brief  and  eloquent  address.  Resolutions, 
drawn  by  him,  were  then  read  and  offered  by  Mr.  Hallett,  and  sec 
onded  in  an  able  speech  by  George  S.  Hillard,  Esq. 

The  Hon.  James  T.  Austin,  Attorney-General  of  the  Commonwealth, 
followed  in  a  speech  of  the  utmost  bitterness,  styled  by  the  Boston 
Atlas  a  few  days  after  "  most  able  and  triumphant."  He  compared 
the  slaves  to  a  menagerie  of  wild  beasts,  and  the  rioters  at  Alton  to 
the  "  orderly  mob  "  which  threw  the  tea  overboard  in  1773,  —  talked 
of  the  "  conflict  of  laws "  between  Missouri  and  Illinois,  —  declared 
that  Lovcjoy  was  "  presumptuous  and  imprudent,"  and  "  died  as  the 
fool  dieth";  in  direct  and  most  insulting  reference  to  Dr.  Chan 
ning,  he  asserted  that  a  clergyman  with  a  gun  in  his  hand,  or  one 
"mingling  in  the  debates  of  a  popular  assembly,  was  marvellously 
<  out  of  place." 

The  .-speech  of  the  Attorney-General  produced  great  excitement 
throughout  the  Hall.  Wendell  Phillips,  Esq.,  who  had  not  expected 


2  THE   MURDER    OF   LOVEJOY. 

to  take  part  in  the  meeting,  rose  to  reply.  That  portion  of  the  assem 
bly  which  sympathized  with  Mr.  Austin  now  became  so  boisterous,  that 
Mr.  Phillips  had  difficulty  for  a  while  in  getting  the  attention  of  the 
audience. 


R.  CHAIRMAN  :  —  We  have  met  for  the  freest  dis 
cussion  of  these  resolutions,  and  the  events  which 
gave  rise  to  them.  [Cries  of  "  Question,"  "  Hear  him,*" 
"Go  on,"  "No  gagging,"  etc.]  I  hope  I  shall  be  per 
mitted  to  express  my  surprise  at  the  sentiments  of  the  last 
speaker,  —  surprise  not  only  at  such  sentiments  from  such 
a  man,  but  at  the  applause  they  have  received  within  these 
walls.  A  comparison  has  been  drawn  between  the  events 
of  t.hft^Rfivol i^tion'  and  tiie  tragedy  at  Alton.  We  have 
heard  it  asserted  here,lrTl^aneuil  Hall,  that  Great  Britain 
had  a  right  to  tax  the  Colonies,  and  we  have  heard  the 
mob  at  Alton,  the  drunken  murderers  of  Lovejoy,  com 
pared  to  those  patriot  fathers  who  threw  the  tea  over 
board  !  [Great  applause.]  Fellow-citizens,  is  this  Faneuil 
Hall  doctrine?  ["No,  no."]  The  mob  at  Alton  were  met 
to  wrest  from  a  citizen  his  just  rights,  —  met  to  resist  the 
laws.  We  have  been  told  that  our  fathers  did  the  same  ; 
and  the  glorious  mantle  of  Revolutionary  precedent  has 
been  thrown  over  the  mobs  "of  our  clayT^To^inake  out 
their  title  to  such  defence,  the  gentleman  says  that  the 
British  Parliament  had  a  right  to  tax  these  Colonies.  It  is 
:  that,  without  this,  his  parallel  falls  to  the  ground  ; 
for  Lovejoy  had  stationed  himself  within  constitutional  bul- 
warks^JFIe  was  not  only  defending  the  freedom  of  the 
pess,  but  he  was  under  his  own  roof,  in  arms  with  the 
sanction  of  the  civil  authority.  The  men  who  assailed 
him  went  against  and  over  the  laws.  The  mob,  as  the 
gentleman  terms  it,  —  mob,  forsooth  !  certainly  ^  sons 
of  the  Jtea^snillers  are  a  marvellously  patient  generation  I  — 


I 


THE  MURDER   OF   LOVEJOY.  3 

the  "  orderly  mob  "  which  assembled  in  the  Old  South  to 
destroy  the  tea  were  met  to  resist,  not  the  laws,  but  illegal 
exactions.  Shame  on  the  American  who  calls  the  tea-tax 
and  stamp-act  laws!  Our  fathers  resisted,  not  the  King's 
prerogative,  but  the  King's  usurpation.  To  find  any  other 
account,  you  must  read  our  Revolutionary  history  upside 
down.  Our  State  archives  are  loaded  with  arguments  of 
John  Adams  to  prove  the  taxes  laid  by  the  British  Parlia 
ment  unconstitutional,  —  beyond  its  power.  It  was  not 
till  this  was  made  out  that  the  men  of  New  England  rushed 
to  arms.  The  arguments  of  the  Council  Chamber  and  the 
House  of  Representatives  preceded  and  sanctioned  the 
contest.  To  draw  the  conduct  of  our  ancestors  into  a 
precedent  for  mobs,  for  a  right  to  resist  laws  we  ourselves 
have  enacted,  is  an  insult  to  their  memory.  The  differ 
ence  between  the  excitements  of  those  days  and  our  own, 
which  the  gentleman  in  kindness  to  the  latter  has  over 
looked,  is  simply  this  :  the  men  of  that  day  went  for  the 
right,  as  secured'  by  the  laws.  They  were  the  people 
\#{Vising  to  sustain  the  laws  and  constitution  of  the  Province. 
J*  .  The  rioters  of  our  day  go  for  their  own  wills,  right 

wrong.     Sir,  when  I  heard  the  gentleman  lay  down  prin 
ciples  which  place  the  murderers  of  Alton  side  by  side 
i     with    Otis    and    Hancock,    with    Quincy   and   Adams; 
thought  those  pictured  Hps  [pointing  to  the   portraits  in 
the   Hall]   would  have  broken  into  voice  to  rebuke^the 
recreant  American,  —  the  slanderer  of  the  dead.^^L&reat  ~ 
applause  and  counter  applause.]     The  gentleman  said  that 
he  should  sink  into  insignificance  if  he  dared  to  gainsay  ^ 
the  principles  of  these  resolutions.     Sir,  for  the  sentiments 
he  has  uttered,  on  soil  consecrated  by  the  prayers  of  Puri-  - 
tans  and   the   blood   of  patriots,   the   earth  should   have  - 
yawned  and  swallowed  him  up. 

[Aft>lause  and  hisses,  with  cries  of  "  Take  that  back."     The  uproar 
became  so  great  that  for  a  long  time  no  one  could  be  heard.    At  length 


4  THE   MURDER   OF   LOVEJOY. 

G.  Bond,  Esq.,  and  Hon.  W.  Sturgis  came  to  Mr.  Phillips's  side  at  the 
front  of  the  platform.  They  were  met  with  cries  of  "  Phillips  or  no 
body,"  "Make  him  take  back  '  recreant,'"  "He  sha'n't  go  on  till  he 
takes  it  back."  When  it  was  understood  they  meant  to  sustain,  not  to 
interrupt,  Mr.  Phillips,  Mr.  Sturgis  was  listened  to,  and  said :  "  I  did 
not  come  here  to  take  any  part  in  this  discussion,  nor  do  I  intend  to  ; 
but  I  do  entreat  you,  fellow-citizens,  by  everything  you  hold  sacred, — 
T  conjure  you  by  every  association  connected  with  this  Hall,  conse 
crated  by  our  fathers  to  freedom  of  discussion,  —  that  you  listen  to  every 
man  who  addresses  you  in  a  decorous  manner."  Mr.  Phillips  resumed.] 

Fellow-citizens,  I  cannot  take  back  my  words.  Surely 
the  Attorney-General,  so  long  and  well  known  here,  needs 
not  the  aid  of  your  hisses  against  one  so  young  as  I  am,  — 
my  voice  never  before  heard  within  these  walls  ! 
/-"^Another  ground  has  been  taken  to  excuse  the  mob,  and 
throw  doubt  and  discredit  on  the  conduct  of  Lovejoy  and 
his  associates.  Allusion  has  been  made  to  what  lawyers 
understand  very  well,  —  the  "conflict  of  laws."  We  are 
-told  that  nothing  but  the  Mississippi  River  rolls  between 
St.  Louis  and  Alton;  and  the  conflict  of  laws  somehow  or 
other  gives  the  citizens  of  the  former  a  right  to  find  fault 
with  the  defender  of  the  press  for  publishing  his  opinions 
so  near  their  limits.  Will  the  gentleman  venture  that 
argument  before  lawyers  ?  How  the  laws  of  the  two 
States  could  be  said  to  come  into  conflict  in  such  circum 
stances  I  question  whether  any  lawyer  in  this  audience 
can  explain  or  understand.  No  matter  whether  the  line 
that  divides  one  sovereign  State  from  another  be  an  im 
aginary  one  or  ocean-wide,  the  moment  you  cross  it  the 
State  you  leave  is  blotted  out  of  existence,  so  far  as  you 
are  concerned.  The  Czar  might  as  well  claim  to  control 
the  deliberations  of  Faneuil  Hall,  as  the  laws  of  Missouri 
demand  reverence,  or  the  shadow  of  obedience,  from  an 
inhabitant  of  Illinois.  ^ 

I  must  find  some  fault  with  the  statement  ^iyiik  ha$ 
been  made  of  the  events  at  Alton.     It  has  been  asked 


THE  MURDER   OF  LOVEJOY. 

why  Lovejoy  and  his  friends  did  not  ; 

tive,  —  trust  their  defence  to  the  police  ^WP  City.  It  ima 
been  hinted  that,  from  hasty  and  ill-judged  excitement,  the 
men  within  the  building  provoked  a  quarrel,  and  that  he 
fell  in  the  course  of  it,  one  mob  resisting  another.  Recol 
lect,  Sir,  that  they  did  act  with  the  approbation  and  sanction 
of  the.  Mayor.  In  strict  truth,  there  was  no  executive  to 
appeal  to  for  protection.  The  Mayor  acknowledged  that 
he  could  not  protect  them.  They  asked  him  if  it  was 
lawful  for  them  to  defend  themselves.  He  told  them  it 
was,  and  sanctioned  their  assembling  in  arms  to  do  so. 
They  were  not,  then,  a  mob ;  they  were  not  merely  citizens 
defending  their  own  property ;  they  were  in  some  sense 
the  j^osse  comitatm,  adopted  for  the  occasion  into  the  police 
of  the  city,  acting  under  the  order  of  a  magistrate^ 
was  civil  authority  resisting  lawless  violence.  Where, 
then,  was  the  imprudence  ?  Is  the  doctrine  to  be  sus 
tained  here,  that  it  is  imprudent  for  men  to  aid  magis 
trates  in  executing  the  laws? 

Men  are  continually  asking  each  other,  Had  Lovejoy  a 
right  to  resist  ?  Sir,  I  protest  against  the  question,  instead 
of  answering  it.  Lovejoy  did  not  resist,  in  the  sense  they 
mean.  He  did  not  throw  himself  back  on  the  natural  right 
of  self-defence.  He  did  not  cry  anarchy,  and  let  slip  the 
dogs  of  civil  war,  careless  of  the  horrors  which  would  follow. 
'""Sir,  as  I  understand  this  affair,  it  was  not  an  individual 
protecting  his  property  ;  it  was  not  one  body  of  armed  men 
resisting  another,  and  making  the  streets  of  a  peaceful  city 
run  blood  with  their  contentions.  It  did  not  bring  back  the 
scenes  in  some  old  Italian  cities,  where  family  met  family, 
and  faction  met  faction,  and  mutually  trampled  the  laws 
under  foot.'  No ;  the  men  in  that  house  were  regularly 
enrolled,  under  the  sanction  of  the  Mayor.  There  being  no 
militia  in  Alton,  about  seventy  men  were  enrolled  with  the 
lyor.  These  relieved  each  other  every 


t)  THE   MURDER    OF   LOVEJOY. 

other  night.  About  thirty  men  were  in  arms  on  the  night 
of  the  sixth,  when  the  press  was  landed.  The  next  even 
ing,  it  was  not  thought  necessary  to  summon  more  than 
half  that  number;  among  these  was  Lovejoy.  It  was, 
therefore,  you  perceive,  Sir,  the  police  of  the  city  resisting 
rioters,  —  civil  government  breasting  itself  to  the  shock  \f 
lawless  men. 

Jllere  is  no  question  about  the  right  of  self-defence.     It 
yr  is  in  fact  simply  this :  Has  the  civil  magistrate  a  right  to 
4f     put  down  a  riot  ?    v  fjU**  I 

^  Some  persons  seem  to  imagine  that  anarchy  existed  at 

V     NV     Alton  from  the  commencement  of  these  disputes.     Not  at 

Nail.     "  No  one  of  us,"  says  an  eyewitness  and  a  comrade 

*  of  Lovejoy,  uhas  taken  up  arms  during  these  disturbances 

•f      (   to^  a^  ^e  command  of  the   Mayor."     Anarchy  did  noil 

jj  1    setfle  down   on   that  devoted  city  till   Lovejoy  breathed* 

'    his   last.*  ^mjA^n   tjj^law,  represented  in  his  person, 

sustained   itself  against    its    foes.      When    he    fell,    civil 

authority  was  trampled  under   foot.     He   had   "  planted 

himself  on  his  constitutional  rights,"  —  appealed   to   the 

laws,  —  claimed  the   protection  of  the  civil  authority,  — 

taken  refuse   under   "  the  broad  shield  of  the  Constitu- 

O 

tion.  When  through  that  he  was  pierced  and  fell,  he  fell 
but  one  sufferer  in  a  common  catastrophe."  He  took 
:  refuge  under  the  banner  of  liberty,  —  amid  its  folds  ;  and 
when  he  fell,  its  glorious  stars  and  stripes,  the  emblem  of 
free  institutions,  around  which  cluster  so  many  heart-stir 
ring  memories,  were  blotted  out  in  the  martyr's  blood.  J/ 
It  has  been  stated,  perhaps  inadvertently,  that  Lovejoy 
or  his  comrades  fired  first.  This  is  denied  by  those  who 
have  the  best  means  of  knowing.  Guns  were  first  fired 
by  the  mob.  After  being  twice  fired  on,  those  within  the 
building  consulted  together  and  deliberately  returned  the 
fire.  But  suppose  they  did  fire  first.  They  had  a  right 
so  to  do;  not  only  the  right  which  ever^^jitizen  Jaas  to 


THE   MURDLR   OF   LOVEJOT. 

defend  himself,  but  the  further  right  which  every  civil 
officer  has  to  resist  violence.  Even  if  Lovejoy  fired  th 
first  gun,  it  would  not  lessen  his  claim  to  our  sympathy,  0 
destroy  his  title  to  be  considered  a  martyr  in  defence  of  a 
free  press.  The  question  now  is,  Did  he  act  within  the 
Constitution  and  the  laws  ?  The  men  who  fell  in  State 
Street  on  the  5th  of  March,  1770,  did  more  than  Lovejoy 
is  charged  with.  They  were  the  first  assailants.  Upon 
some  slight  quarrel  they  pelted  the  troops  with  every  mis 
sile  within  reach.  Did  this  bate  one  jot  of  the  eulogy 
with  which  Hancock  and  Warren  hallowed  their  mem 
ory,  hailing  them  as  the  first  martyrs  in  the  cause  of 
American  liberty  ? 

•^If,  Sir,  I  had  adopted  what  are  called  Peace  principles,  I 
might  lament  the  circumstances  of  this  case.  But  all  you 
who  believe,  as  I  do,  in  the  right  and  duty  of  magistrates 
to  execute  the  laws,  j  ojnwith  me  flnd  brand^jy^base  hypoc 
risy  the  conduct  of  those  who  assemble  year  after  year  on  / 
the  4th  of  July,  to  fight  over  the  battles  of  the  Revolution, 
and  yet  "  damn  with  faint  praise,"  or  load  with  obloquy, 
the  memory  of  this  man,  who  shed  his  blood  in  defence 
of  life,  liberty,  property,  and  the  freedom  of  the  press  ! 

Throughout  that  terrible  night  I  find  nothing  to  regret 
but  this,  that  within  the  limits  of  our  country,  civil  author 
ity  should  have  been  so  prostrated  as  to  oblige  a  citizen  to 
arm  in  his  own  defence,  and  to  arm  in  vain.  The  gentle-^  *%^ 
man  says  Lovejoy  was  presumptuous  and  imprudent,  —  he 
died  as  the  fool  dieth."  And  a  reverend  clergyman  of 
tne  city*  tells  us  that  no  citizen  has  a  right  to  publish 
opinions  disagreeable  to  the  community  !  If  any  mob 
follows  such  publication,  on  him  rests  its  guilt  !  He  must 
wait,  forsooth,  till  the  people  come  up  to  it  and  agree  with 

*  See  Rev.  Huhbard  Winslow's  discourse  on  Liberty  !  in  which  he  defines 
"  republican  liberty  "  to  be  "  liberty  to  say  and  do  what  the  prevailing  voice 
and  will  of  the  brotherhood  will  allow  and  protect.  " 


8  THE   MURDER   OF  LOVEJOY. 

him  !  This  libel  on  liberty  goes  on  to  say  that  the  want 
of  right  to  speak  as  we  think  is  an  evil  inseparable  from 
republican  institutions  !  If  this  be  so,  what  are  they 
worth  ?  Welcome  the  despotism  of  the  Sultan,  where 
one  knows  what  he  may  publish  and  what  he  may  not, 

Jther  than  the  tyranny  of  this  many-headed  monster,  the 
)b,  where  we  know  not  what  we  may  do  or  say,  till 
tne  fellow-citizen   has  tried  it,  and  paid  for  the  lesson 
th  his  life.^This  clerical  absurdity  chooses  as  a  check 
*  the  abuses  of  the  press,  not  the  law,  but  the  dread  of 
mob.     By  so  doing,  it  deprives  not  only  the  individual 
and  the   minority  of  their  rights,   but  the  majority  also, 
since  the  expression  of  their  opinion  may  sometimes  pro 
voke   disturbance  from  the  minority.     A  few  men  may 
lake  a  mob  as  well  as  many.     The  majority,  then,  have 
no  right,  as  Christian  men,  to  utter  their  sentiments,  if  by 
any  possibility,  it  may  le^ad.  to  a  mob  !     Shades  of  Hugh 
Peters  and  John  Cotton,  save  us  from  such  pulpits  ! 

Imprudent  to  defend  the  liberty  of  the  press  !     Why  ? 
Because   the   defence   was   unsuccessful  ?      Does   success 
\    gild   crime    into    patriotism,   and  the   want  of  it  change 
i    heroic  self-devotion  to  imprudence  ?     Was  Hampden  im- 
A   prudent  when   he   drew  the   sword  and  threw  away  the 
*^  scabbard  ?     Yet  he,  judged  by  that  single  hour,  was  un- 
k*  successful.     After  a  short  exile,  the  race    he    hated  sat 

**keaiii  upon  the  throne. 
"&  r 

Imagine  yourself  present  when  the  first  news  of  Bunker 
Hill  battle  reached  a  New  England  town.  The  tale  would^" 
have  run  thus  :  "  The  patriots  are  routed,  —  the  red 
coats  victorious,  —  Warren  lies  dead  upon  the  field."  With 
what  scorn  would  that  Tory  have  been  received,  who 
should  have  charged  Warren  with  imprudence  !  who  should 
have  said  that,  bred  a  physician,  he  was  "  out  of  place  "  in 
that  battle,  and  "  died  as  the  fool  dieth" !  [Great  applause.] 
How  would  the  intimation  have  been  received,  that  War- 


THE   MURDER   OF  LOVEJOY.  9 

ren  and  his  associates  should  have  waited  a  better  time  ? 
But  if  success  be  indeed  the  only  criterion  of  prudence, 
Respice  finem,  — t^ait  till  the  end. 

Presumptuous  to  assert  the  freedom  of  the   press  on 
Is  the  assertion  of  such  freedom  be 


fore  the  age  ?  So  much  before  the  age  as  to  leave  one  no 
right  to  make  it  because  it  displeases  the  community  ? 
Who  invents  this  libel  on  his  country  ?  It  "Is^tfris-stexy 
thing  which^utitlcjJ^jQy^^  to  greater  praise. 

rightwhicli  provoked  the  Revolution  —  taxation 
witftouTrepresentation  —  is  far  beneath  that  for  which  he 
dieeTT fHere  ihere  was  a"T>liun^  and  general  "expression 
of  disapprobation.]  One  word,  gentlemen.  _As^  much  as 
thought  is  better  than  mon^y,  so  mnnji  fa  the  onrise  in 
died  nobler  than^aunere  question  of. 


James  Otis  thundered  in  this   Hall   when   the   Kino;  did 

O 

but  touch  his  pocket.  Imagine,  if  you  can,  his  indignant 
eloquence,  had  England  offered  to  put  a  gag  upon  his 
lips.  [Great  applause.] 

The  question  that  stirred  the  Revolution  touched  our 
civil  interests.  This  concerns  us  not  only  as  citizens,  but 
as  immortal  beings.  Wrapped  up  in  its  fate,  saved  or  lost 
with  it,  are  not  only  the  voice  of  the  statesman,  but  the 
instructions  of  the  pulpit,  and  the  progress  of  our  faith. 

The  clergy  "  marvellously  out  of  place  "  where  free 
speech  is  battled  for,  —  liberty  of  speech  on  national  sins  ? 
Does  the  gentleman  remember  that  freedom  to  preach  was 
first  gained,  dragging  in  its  train  freedom  to  print  ?  I  thank 
the  clergy  here  present,  as  I  reverence  their  predecessors, 
who  did  not  so  far  forget  their  country  in  their  immediate 
profession  as  to  deem  it  duty  to  separate  themselves  from 
the  struggle  of  '76,  —  the  Mayhews  and  Coopers,  who  re 
membered  they  were  citizens  before  they  were  clergymen. 

Mr.  Chairman,  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  I  thank  that 
brave  little  band  at  Alton  for  resisting.  Wje  must  remem- 


10  THE  MURDER   OF   LOVEJOY. 

ber  that  Lovejoy  had  fledjrom  cityto_city,  —  suffered 
the- destructioii^fjjiree  prcooe^^entlyT  At  lengtn  he 
took  counsel  with  friends,  men  of  character,  of  tried  integ 
rity,  of  widF^iews7oT~Christian  principle.  They  thought 
the  crisis  had  come :  it  was  full  time  to  assert  the  laws. 
They  saw  around  them,  not  a  community  like  our  own,  of 
fixed  habits,  of  character  moulded  and  settled,  but  one  "  in 
the  gristle,  not  yet  hardened  into  the  bone  of  manhood/' 
The  people  there,  children  of  our  older  States,  seem  to  have 
forgotten  the  blood- tried  principles  of  their  fathers  the 
moment  they  lost  sight  of  our  New  England  hills.  Some 
thing  was  to  be  done  to  show  them  the  priceless  value  of 
the  freedom  of  the  press,  to  bring  back  and  set  right  their 
wandering  and  confused  ideas.  He  and  his  advisers  looked 
out  on  a  community,  staggering  like  a  drunken  man,  indif- 
ferent  to  their  rights  and  confused  in  their  feelings.  Deaf 
to  argument,  haply  they  might  be  stunned  into  sobriety. 
They  saw  that  of  which  we  cannot  judge,  the  necessity  of 
resistance.  Insulted  law  called  for  it.  Public  opinion, 
fast  hastening  on  the  downward  course,  must  be  arrested. 

Does  not  the  event  show  they  judged  rightly  ?  Ab 
sorbed  in  a  thousand  trifles,  how  has  the  nation  all  at 
once  come  to  a  stand  ?  Men  begin,  as  in  1776  and  1640, 
to  discuss  principles,  to  weigh  characters,  to  find  out  where 
they  are.  Haply  we  may  awake  before  we  are  borne 
over  the  precipice. 

I  am  glad,  Sir,  to  see  this  crowded  house.  It  is  good 
for  us  to  be  here.  When  Liberty  is  in  danger,  Faneuil 
Hall  has  the  right,  it  is  her  duty,  to  strike  the  key-note 
for  these  United  States.  I  am  glad,  for  one  reason,  that 
remarks  such  as  those  to  which  I  have  alluded  have  been 
uttered  here.  The  passage  of  these  resolutions,  in  spite 
of  this  opposition,  led  by  the  Attorney-General  of  the 
Commonwealth,  will  show  more  clearly,  more  decisively, 
the  deep  indignation  with  which  Boston  regards  this 
outrage. 


WOMAN'S  RIGHTS. 


THIS  speech  was  made  at  a  Convention  held  at  Worcester,  on  tfiu 
15th  and  16th  of  October,  1851,  upon  the  following  resolutions,  which 
were  offered  by  Mr.  Phillips  :  — 

"  1.  Resolved,  That,  while  we  would  not  undervalue  other  methods, 
the  right  of  suffrage  for  women  is,  in  our  opinion,  the  corner-stone 
of  this  enterprisej_since  we  do  not  seek  to  protect  woman,  but  rather 
to  place  her  in  a  position  to  protect Tj 

Resolved,  That  it  will  be  woman's  fault  if,  the  ballot  once  IT?  her 
hand^  all  the  barHarniisT_dejiioralizing,  and  unequal  laws  relating  to 
jnarriagc  and  property  do  not  speedily  vanish  from  the  statute-bookj 
and  while  we  acknowledge  that  the  hope  of  a  share  in  the  higher  pro 
fessions  and  profitable  employments  of  society  is  one  of  the  strongest 
motives  to  intellectual  culture,  we  know,  also,  that  an  interest  in 
political  questions  is  an  equally  powerful  stimulus ;  and  we  see,  beside, 
that  we  do  our  best  to  insure  education  to  an  individual,  when  we  put 
the  ballot  into  his  hands ;  it  being  so  clearly  the  interest  of  the  com 
munity  that  one  upon  whose  decisions  depend  its  welfare  and  safety 
should .  both  have  free  access  to  the  best  means  of  education,  and  be 
urged  to  make  use  of  them. 

''  3.  Resolved,  That  we  do  not  feel  called  upon  to  assert  or  establish 
the  equality  of  the  sexes,  in  an  intellectual  or  any  other  point  of  view. 
It  is  enough  for  our.  argument  that  natural  and  political  justice,  and 
the  axioms  of  English  and  American  liberty,  alike  determine  that 
rights  and  burdens,  taxation  and  representation,  should  be  co 
extensive  ;  hence  women,  as  individual  citizens,  liable  to  punishment 
for  acts  which  the  laws  call  criminal,  or  to  be  taxed  in  their  labor  and 
property  for  the  support  of  government,  have  a  self-evident  and  indis 
putable  right,  identically  the  same  right  that  men  have,  to  a  direct 
voice  in  the  enactment  of  those  laws  and  the  formation  of  that  govern 
ment. 

"  4.  Resolved,  That  the  democrat,  or  reformer,  who  denies  suffrage  to 


12  WOMAN'S  RIGHTS. 

women,  Is  a  democrat  only  because  he  was  not  born  a  noble,  and  one 
of  those  levellers  who  are  willing  to  level  only  down  to  themselves. 

"  5.  Resolved,  That  while  political  and  natural  justice  accord  civil 
equality  to  woman  ;  while  great  thinkers  of  every  age,  from  Plato  to 
Condorcet  and  Mill,  have  supported  their  claim ;  while  voluntary 
associations,  religious  and  secular,  have  been  organized  on  this  basis,  — 
there  is  yet  a  favorite  argument  against  it,  that  no  political  community 
or  nation  ever  existed  in  which  women  have  not  been  in  a  state  of 
political  inferiority.  But,  in  reply,  we  remind  our  opponents  that  the 
same  fact  has  been  alleged,  with  equal  truth,  in  favor  of  slavery  ;  has 
been  urged  against  freedom  of  industry,  freedom  of  conscience,  and 
the  freedom  of  the  press ;  none/of  these  liberties  having  been  thought 
compatible  with  a  well-ordered  state,  until  they  had  proved  their  pos 
sibility  by  springing  into  existence  as  facts.  Besides,  there  is  no  diffi 
culty  in  understanding  why  the  subjection  of  woman  has  been  a  uniform 
custom,  when  we  recollect  that  we  are  just  emerging  from  the  ages  in 
which  might  has  been  always  right. 

"  6.  Resolved,  That,  so  far  from  denying  the  overwhelming  social  and 
civil  influence  of  women,  we  are  fully  aware  of  its  vast  extent ;  aware, 
with  Demosthenes,  that '  measures  which  the  statesman  has  meditated 
a  whole  year  may  be  overturned  in  a  day  by  a  woman ' ;  and  for  this 
very  reason  we  proclaim  it  th«  very  highest  expediency  to  endow  her 
with  full  civil  rights,  since  only  then  will  she  exercise  this  mighty  influ 
ence  under  a  just  sense  of  her  duty  and  responsibility ;  the  history  of 
all  ages  bearing  witness  that  the  only  safe  course  for  nations  is  to  add 
open  responsibility  wherever  there  already  exists  unobserved  power. 

"  7.  Resolved,  That  we  deny  the  right  of  any  portion  of  the  species 
to  decide  for  another  portion,  or  of  any  individual  to  decide  for  another 
individual,  what  is  and  what  is  not  its  'proper  sphere';  that  the 
proper  sphere  for  all  human  beings  is  the  largest  and  highest  to  which 
they  are  able  to  attain  ;  what  this  is  cannot  be  ascertained  without 
complete  liberty  of  choice  ;  woman,  therefore,  ought  to  choose  for  her 
self  what  sphere  she  will  fill,  what  education  she  will  seek,  and  what 
employment  she  will  follow ;  and  not  be  held  bound  to  accept,  in  sub 
mission,  the  rights,  the  education,  and  the  sphere  which  man  thinks 
proper  to  allow  her. 

"  8.  Resolved,  That  we  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident :  «  That  all 
men  are  created  equal ;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with 
certain  inalienable  rights ;  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness ;  that,  to  secure  these  rights,  governments  are 
instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of 
the  governed ' ;  and  we  charge  that  man  with  gross  dishonesty  or  igno« 


WOMAN'S   RIGHTS.  13 

ranee  who  shall  contend  that  '  men,'  in  the  memorable  document  from 
which  we  quote,  does  not  stand  for  the  human  race  ;  that  4  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness '  are  the  *  inalienable  rights '  of  half 
only  of  the  human  species ;  and  that,  by  '  the  governed,'  whose  con 
sent  is  affirmed  to  be  the  only  source  of  just  power,  is  meant  that  half 
of  mankind  only  who,  in  relation  to  the  other,  have  hitherto  assumed 
the  character  of  governors. 

"  9.  Resolved,  That  we  see  no  weight  in  the  argument,  that  it  is  neces 
sary  to  exclude  women  from  civil  life  because  domestic  cares  and  polit 
ical  engagements  are  incompatible ;  since  we  do  not  see  the  fact  to  be 
so  in  the  case  of  man ;  and  because,  if  the  incompatibility  be  real,  it 
will  take  care  of  itself,  neither  men  nor  women  needing  any  law  to 
exclude  them  from  an  occupation  when  they  have  undertaken  another 
incompatible  with  it.  Second,  we  see  nothing  in  the  assertion  that 
women  themselves  do  not  desire  a  change,  since  we  assert  that  super 
stitious  fears,  and  dread  of  losing  men's  regard,  smother  all  frank 
expression  on  this  point ;  and  further,  if  it  be  their  real  wish  to  avoid 
civil  life,  laws  to  keep  them  out  of  it  are  absurd,  no  legislator  having 
ever  yet  thought  it  necessary  to  compel  people  by  law  to  follow  their 
own  inclination. 

"  10.  Resolved,  That  it  is  as  absurd  to  deny  all  women  their  civil 
rights  because  the  cares  of  household  and  family  take  up  all  the  time 
of  some,  as  it  would  be  to  exclude  the  whole  male  sex  from  Congress, 
because  some  men  are  sailors,  or  soldiers,  in  active  service,  or  mer 
chants,  whose  business  requires  all  their  attention  and  energies." 


IN  drawing  up  some  of  these  resolutions,  I  have  used, 
very  freely,  the  language  of  a  thoughtful  and  profound 
article  in  the  Westminster  Revieiv.  It  is  a  review  of  the 
proceedings  of  our  recent  Convention  in  this  city,  and 
states  with  singular  clearness  and  force  the  leading  argu 
ments  for  our  reform,  and  the  grounds  of  our  claim  in 
behalf  of  woman. 

I  rejoice  to  see  so  large  an  audience  gathered  to  con 
sider  this  momentous  subject.  It  was  well  described  by 
Mrs.  Rose  as  the  most  magnificent  reform  that  has  yet 
been  launched  upon  the  world.  It  is  the  first  organized 


14  WOMAN'S  RIGHTS. 

protest  against  the  injustice  which  has  brooded  over  the 
character  and  the  destiny  of  one  half  of  the  human  race,^ 
Nowhere  else,  under  any  circumstances,  has  a  demand 
ever  yet  been  made  for  the  liberties  of  one  whole  half  of 
our  race.  It  is, fitting  that  we  should  pause  and  consider 
so  remarkable  and  significant  a  circumstance  ;  that  we 
should  discuss  the  question  involved  with  the  seriousness 
and  deliberation  suitable  to  such  an  enterprise.  It  strikes, 
indeed,  a  great  and  vital  blow  at  the  whole  social  fabric  of 
every  nation ;  but  this,  to  my  mind,  is  no  argument 
against  it,  The  time  has-been  when  it  was  the  duty  of 
the  reformer  to  show  cause  why  he  appeared  to  disturb 
the  quiet  of  the  world.  But  during  the  discussion  ofj,h§ 
many  reforms  that  have  been  advocated,  and  which  have 
more  or  less  succeeded,  one  after  another,  —  freedom  of 
the  lower  classes,  freedom  of  food,  freedom  of  the  press, 
freeftoni  of  thought,  reform  in  penal  legislation,  and  a 
thousand  other  matters,  — jj£  seems  to  me  to  have  been 
proved  conclusively,  that  government  commenced  in 
usurpation  and  oppression  ;  that  liberty  and  civilization, 
at  present,  are  nothing  else  than  the  fragments  of  rights 
which  the  scaffold  and  the  stake  have  wrung'  from  the 
strong  hands  of  the  usurpers.}  Every  step  of  progress  the 
jTworld  has  made  has  been  ironi  scaffold  to  scaffold,  and  '| 
r  from  stake  to  stake.  It  would  hardly  be  exaggeration  to 
say,  that  all  the  great  truths  relating  to  society  and  gov 
ernment  have  been  first  heard  in  the  solemn  protests  of 
martyred  patriotism,  or  the  loud  cries  of  crushed  and 
starving  labor.  The  law  has  been  always  wrong.  Gov 
ernment  began  in  tyranny  and  force,  began  in  the  feudal 
ism  of  the  soldier  and  bigotry  of  the  priest ;  and  the  ideas 
of  justice  and  humanity  have  been  fighting  their  way, 
like  a  thunder-storm,  against  the  organized  selfishness 
of  human  nature.  And  this  is  the  last  great  protest 
against  the  wrong  of  ages.  It  is  no  argument  to  my 


WOMAN'S   RIGHTS.  15 

mind,  therefore,,  that  the  old  social  fabric  of  the  past  is 
against  us. 

Neither  do  I  feel  called  upon  to  show  wnat  woman's 
proper  sphere  is.     In   every  great  reform,  the   majority 
have^  always    said   to   the   claimant,  no  matter  what  he 
"claimed,  "  You  are  not  fit  for  such  a  privilege."     Luther  |  \ 
asked  of  the  Pope  liberty  for  the  masses  to  read  the  Bible.  I  [ 
'"The   reply  was,   that  it  would  not   be  sate  to  trust  the 


said  tlir  groat  rrfnrmor ;  nnfl  flip  lijsf.nry  of  three  centuries 
of  development,  and  parity  proclaim^  t.hp.  rp.snlt. — They 
have  triedj_  and  look  around  you  for  the  consequences. 

Fielower  classes  in  France  claimed  their  civil  rights,  — 
the  right  to  vote,  and  to  direct  representation  in  the  gov 
ernment  ;  but  the  rich  and  lettered  classes,  the  men  of 
cultivated  intellects,  cried  out,  "  You  cannot  be  made 
fit."  The  answer  was,  "Let  us  try."  -That  France  is 
not,  as  Spain,  utterly  crushed  beneath  the  weight  of  a 
thousand  years  of  misgovernment,  is  the  answer  to  those 
who  doubt  the  ultimate  success  of  this  experiment. 

Woman  stands  now  at  the  same  door.  She  says,  "  You 
tell  me  I  have  no  intellect :  give  me  a  chance.  You  tell 
me  I  shall  only  embarrass  politics :  let  me  try."  'The 
only  reply  is  the  same  stale  argument  that  said  to  the  Jews 
of  Europe,  "  You  are  fit  only  to  make  money  ;  you  are 
not  fit  for  the  ranks  of  the  army  or  the  halls  of  Parlia 
ment."  How  cogent  the  eloquent  appeal  of  Macaulay, — 
"  What  right  have  we  to  take  this  question  for  granted  ? 
Throw  operj.  tlie-doors  of  this  House  of  Commons,  throw 
open  the  ranks  of  the  imperial  army,  before  you  deny 
eloquence  to  the  countrymen  of  Isaiah  or  valor  to  the 
descendants  of  the  Maccabees."  It  is  the  same  now  with 
us.  ;  Throw  open  the_doors  of  Congress,  tlu^QW  ,qpen  those 
court-houses,  throw  wide  op^n  the  doors  of  your  colleges, 
ancTgive  to  the  sisters  of  the  Motts  and  the  Somervillea 


16  WOMAN'S   RIGHTS. 

the  same  opportunities  for  culture  that  men  have,  and  let 
the  result  prove  what  their  capacity  and  intellect  really 
are.  When,  I  say,  woman  has  enjoyed,  for  as  many 
centuries  as  we  have,  the  aid  of  books,  the  discipline  of 
life,  and  the  stimulus  of  fame,  it  will  be  time  to  begin  the 
discussion  of  these  questions, —  "What  is  the  intellect 
of  woman  ?  "  "  Is  it  equal  to  that  of  man  ?  "  Till  then, 
all  such  discussion  is  mere  beatino-  of  the  air. 

O 

While  it  is  doubtless  true  that  great  minds,  in  many 
cases,  make  a  way  for  themselves,  spite  of  all  obstacles, 
yet  who  knows  how  many  Miltons  have  died  "  mute  and 
inglorious  "  ?  However  splendid  the  natural  endowment, 
the  discipline  of  life,  after  all,  completes  the  miracle.  The 
ability  of  Napoleon,  —  what  was  it  ?  It  grew  out  of  the 
hope  to  be  Caesar  or  Marlborough,  —  out  of  Austerlitz  and 
Jena,  —  but  of  his  battle-fields,  his  throne,  and  all  the 
great  scenes  of  that  eventful  life.  Open  to  woman  the 
feame  scenes,  immerse  her  in  the  same  great  interests  and 
(pursuits,  and  if  twenty  centuries  shall  not  produce  a 
/woman  Charlemagne  or  Napoleon,  fair  reasoning  will  then 
allow  us  to  conclude  that  there  is  some  distinctive  pecu 
liarity  in  the  intellects  of  the  sexes.  Centuries  alone  can 
lay  any  fair  basis  for  argument.  I  believe  that,  on  this 
point,  there  is  a  shrinking  consciousness  of  not  being  ready 
for  the  battle,  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  stronger  sex,  as 
they  call  themselves  ;  a  tacit  confession  of  risk  to  this 
imagined  superiority,  if  they  consent  to  meet  their  sisters 
in  the  lecture-hall  or  the  laboratory  of  science.  My  proof 
of  it  is  this  :  that  the  mightiest  intellects  of  the  race,  from 
Plato  down  to  the  present  time,  some  of  the  rarest  minds 
of  Germany,  France,  and  England,  have  successively 
yielded  their  assent  to  the  fact  that  woman  is,  not  per 
haps  identically,  but  equally,  endowed  with  man  in  all 
intellectual  capabilities.  It  is  generally  the  second-rate 
men  who  doubt,  —  doubt,  perhaps,  because  they  fear  a 
fair  field  :  — • 


tyr^-sx. 


«tr     9*  *^i     xS 

WOMAN'S  RIGHTS.  17 

"  He  either  fears  his  fate  too  much, 

Or  his  deserts  are  small, 
Who  fears  to  put  it  to  the  touch, 
To  gain  or  lose  it  all." 


But  I  wish  especially  to  direct  your  attention  to  the 
precise  principle  which  this  movement  undertakes  to  urge 
upon  the  community.  We  do  not  attempt  to  settle 
what  shall  be  the  profession,  education,  or  employment  ot 
woman.  We  have  not  that  presumption.  What  we  ask 
is  simply  this,  —  what  all  other  classes  have  asked  before  : 
Leave  it  to  woman  to  choose  for  herself  her  profession, 
her  education,  and  her  sphere.  We  deny  to  any  portion 
of  the  species  the  right  to  prescribe  to  any  other  portion 
its  sphere,  its  education,  or  its  rights.  We  deny  the  right 
of  any  individual  to  prescribe  to  any  other  individual  his 
amount  of  education,  or  his  rights.  The  sphere  of  each 
man,  of  each  woman,  of  each  individual,  is  that  sphere 
which  he  can,  with  the  highest  exercise  of  his  powers, 
perfectly  fill.  The  highest  act  which  the  human  being 
can  do,  that  is  the  act  which  God  designed  him  to  do. 
All  that  woman  asks  through  this  movement  is,  to  be 
allowed  to  prove  what  she  can  do ;  to  prove  it  by  liberty 
of  choice,  by  liberty  of  action,  the  only  means  by  which  it 
ever  can  be  settled  how  much  and  what  she  can  do.  She 
can  reasonably  say  to  us:  "I  have  never  fathomed  the 
depths  of  science ;  you  have  taught  that  it  was  un 
womanly,  and  have  withdrawn  from  me  the  means  of  sci 
entific  culture.  I  have  never  equalled  the  eloquence  of 
Demosthenes ;  but  you  have  never  quickened  my  ener 
gies  by  holding  up  before  me  the  crown  and  robe  of  glory, 
and  the  gratitude  which  I  was  to  win.  The  tools,  now, 
to  him  or  her  who  can  use  them.  Welcome  me,  hence 
forth,  brother,  to  your  arena  ;  and  let  facts  —  not  theo 
ries  —  settle  my  capacity,  and  therefore  my  sphere." 

We  are  not  here  to-night  to  assert  that  woman  will 


18  WOMAN'S   RIGHTS. 

enter  the  lists  and  conquer ;  that  she  will  certainly 
achieve  all  that  man  has  achieved ;  but  this  we  say, 
"  Clear  the  lists,  and  let  her  try."  Some  reply,  "  It 
will  be  a  great  injury  to  feminine  delicacy'~TtTtd  refine 
ment  for  woman  to  mingle  in  business  and  politics."  I 
am  not  careful  to  answer  this  objection.  Of  all  such  ob 
jections,  on  this  and  kindred  subjects,  Mrs.  President,  I 
love  to  dispose  in  some  such  way  as  this  :  The  broadest 
and  most  far-sighted  intellect  is  utterly  unable  to  foresee 
the  ultimate  consequences  of  any  great  social  change. 
Ask  yourself,  on  all  such  occasions,  if  there  be  any  ele 
ment  of  right  and  wrong  in  the  question,  any  principle  of 
clear  natural  justice  that  turns  the  scale.  If  so,  take  your 
part  with  the  perfect  and  abstract  right,  and  trust  God  to 
see  that  it  shall  prove  the  expedient.  The  questions, 
then,  for  me,  on  this  subject,  are  these  :  Has  God  made 
woman  capable  —  morally,  intellectually,  and  physically  — 
of  taking  this  part  in  human  affairs  ?  Then,  what  God 
made  her  able  to  do,  it  is  a  strong  argument  that  he  in 
tended  she  should  do.  Does  our  sense  of  natural  justice 
'dictate  that  the  being  who  is  to  suffer  under  Laws  shall 
(first  personally  assent  to  them  ?  that  the  being  whose 
"industry  government  is  to  burden  should  have  a  voice 
in  fixing  the  character  and  amount  of  that  burden  ? 
Then,  while  woman  is  admitted  to  the  gallows,  the  jail, 
and  the  tax-list,  we  have  no  right  to  debar  her  from  the 
ballot-box.  "  But  to  go  there  will  hurt  that  delicacy  of 
character  which  we  have  always  thought  peculiarly  her 
grace."  I  cannot  help  that.  Let  Him  who  created  her 
capable  of  politics,  and  made  it  just  that  she  should  have 
a  share  in  them,  see  to  it  that  these  rights  which  he  has 
conferred  do  not  injure  the  being  he  created.  Is  it  for 
any  human  being  to  trample  on  the  laws  of  justice  and 
liberty,  from  an  alleged  necessity  of  helping  God  govern 
what  he  has  made  ?  I  cannot  help  God  govern  his  world 


WOMAN'S   RIGHTS.  19 

by  telling  lies,  or  doing  what  my  conscience  deems  unjust. 
How  absurd  to  deem  it  necessary  that  any  one  should  do 
so !  When  Infinite  Wisdom  established  the  rules  of  right 
and  honesty,  he  saw  to  it  that  justice  should  be  always 
the  highest  expediency. 

The  evil,  therefore,  that  some  timid  souls  fear_  to  the 
character^of^woman,  from  the  exercise  of  her  political 
rights,  does  not  at^  all  trouble  me.  "  Let  education  form 
the  rational  and  moral  being,  and  nature  will  take  care  of 
the  woman."  Neither  do  I  feel  at  all  disturbed  by  those 
arguments  addressed  to  us  as  to  the  capacity  of  woman. 
I  know  that  the  humblest  man  and  the  feeblest  has  the 
same  civil  rights,  according  to  the  theory  of  our  institu 
tions,  as  the  most  gifted.  It  is  never  claimed  that  the 
humblest  shall  be  denied  his  civil  right,  provided  he  be 
a  man.  No.  Intellect,  even  though  it  reach  the  Alpine 
height  of  a  Parker,  —  ay,  setting  aside  the  infamy  of  his 
conduct,  and  looking  at  him  only  as  an  instance  of  intel 
lectual  greatness,  to  the  height  of  a  Webster,  —  gets  no 
tittle  of  additional  civil  right,  no  one  single  claim  to  any 
greater  civil  privilege  than  the  humblest  individual,  who 
knows  no  more  than  the  first  elements  of  his  alphabet, 
provided  that  being  is  a  man  (I  ought  to  say,  a  u'Mte 
man).  Grant,  then,  that  woman  is  intellectually  inferior 
to  man,  —  it  settles  nothing.  She  is  still  a  responsible, 
tax-paying  member  of  civil  society.  We  rest  our  claim 
on  the  great,  eternal  principle,  that  taxation  and  repre 
sentation  must  be  coextensive  ;  that  rights  and  burdens 
must  correspond  to  each  otlua* ;  and  he  who  undertakes 
to  answer  the  argument  of  tliis  Convention  must  first 
answer  the  whole  course  of  English  and  American  history 
for  the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years.  No  single  principle 
of  liberty  has  been  enunciated,  from  the  year  1688  until 
now,  that  does  not  cover  the  claim  of  woman.  The  State 
has  never  laid  the  basis  of  right  upon  the  distinction  of 


20  WOMAN'S  RIGHTS. 

sex ;  and  no  reason  has  ever  been  given,  except  a  religious 
one,  —  that  there  are  in  the  records  of  our  religion  conir- 
mands  obliging  us  to  make  woman  an  exception  to  our 
civil  theories,  and  deprive  her  of  that  which  those  theories 
give  her. 

Suppose  that  woman  is  essentially  inferior  to  man,  — 
she  still  has  rights.  (jGrrant  that  Mrs.  Norton  never  could 
be  Byron  ;  that  Elizabeth  Barrett  never  could  have 
written  Paradise  Lost ;  that  Mrs.  Somerville  never  could 
be  La  Place,  nor  Sirani  have  painted  the  Transfiguration. 
What  then  ?  Does  that  prove  they  should  be  deprived  of 
all  civil  rights  ?  John  Smith  never  will  be,  never  can  be, 
Daniel  Webster.  Shall  he,  therefore,  be  put  under  guar 
dianship,  and  forbidden  to  vote?) 

Suppose  woman,  though  equal,  to  differ  essentially  in 
her  intellect  from  man,  —  is  that  any  ground  for  disfran 
chising  her  ?  Shall  the  Fultons  say  to  the  Raphaels, 
"  Because  you  cannot  make  steam-engines,  therefore  you 
shall  not  vote  "  ?  Shall  the  Napoleons  or  the  Washing- 
tons  say  to  the  Wordsworths  or  the  Herschels,  "  Because 
you  cannot  lead  armies  and  govern  states,  therefore  you 
shall  have  no  civil  rights  "  ? 

Grant  that  woman's  intellect  be  essentially  different, 
even  inferior,  if  you  choose  ;  still,  while  our  civilization 
allows  her  to  hold  property,  and  to  be  the  guardian  of  her 
children,  she  is  entitled  to  such  education  and  to  such 
civil  rights  —  voting,  among  the  rest  —  as  will  enable  her 
to  protect  both  her  children  and  her  estate.  It  is  easy  to 
indulge  in  dilettanti  speculation  as  to  woman's  sphere  and 
the  female  intellect ;  but  leave  dainty  speculation,  and 
come  down  to  practical  life.  Here  is  a  young  widow ; 
she  has  children,  and  ability,  if  you  will  let  her  exercise  it, 
to  give  them  the  best  advantages  of  education,  to  secure 
them  every  chance  of  success  in  life  ;  or,  she  has  property 
to  keep  for  them,  and  no  friend  to  rely  on.  Shall  she 


WOMAN'S   RIGHTS.  21 

leave  them  to  sink  in  the  unequal  struggles  of  life  ?  Shall 
she  trust  their  all  to  any  adviser  money  can  buy,  in  order 
to  gratify  your  taste,  and  give  countenance  to  your  nice 
theories  ?  or  shall  she  use  all  the  powers  God  has  given 
her  for  those  he  has  thrown  upon  her  protection  ?  If  we 
consult  common  sense,  and  leave  theories  alone,  there  is 
but  oiie  answer.  Such  a  one  can  rightfully  claim  of  soci 
ety  all  the  civil  privileges,  and  of  fashion  all  such  liberty 
as  will  best  enable  her  to  discharge  fully  her  duties  as  a 
mother. 

But  woman,  it  is  said,  may  safely  trust  all  to  the  watch 
ful  and  generous  care  of  man.  She  has  been  obliged  to 
do  so  hitherto.  With  what  result,  let  the  unequal  and 
unjust  legislation  of  all  nations  answer.  In  Massachusetts,, 
lately,  a  man  married  an  heiress,  worth  fifty  thousand 
dollars.  Dying,  about  a  year  after  his  marriage,  he  made 
this  remarkably  generous  and  manly  will.  He  left  these 
fifty  thousand  dollars  to  her  so  long  as  she  should  remain 
his  widow  !  [Loud  laughter.]  These  dollars,  which  he 
owed  entirely  to  her,  which  were  fairly  hers,  he  left  to 
her,  after  twelve  months'  use,  on  this  generous  condition, 
that  she  should  never  marry  again  !  Ought  a  husband 
to  have  such  unlimited  control  over  the  property  of  his 
wife,  or  over  the  property  which  they  have  together 
acquired  ?  Ought  not  woman  to  have  a  voice  in  deter 
mining  what  the  law  shall  be  in  regard  to  the  property  of 
married  persons  ?  Often  by  her  efforts,  always  by  her 
economy,  she  contributes  much  to  the  stock  of  family 
wealth,  and  is  therefore  justly  entitled  to  a  voice  in  the 
control  and  disposal  of  it.  Neither  common  sense  nor  past 
experience  encourages  her  to  trust  the  protection  of  that 
right  to  the  votes  of  men.  That 

"  Mankind  is  ever  weak, 

And  little  to  be  trusted  ; 
If  self  the  wavering  balance  strike, 
It 's  rarely  right  adjusted,"  — 


22  WOMAN'S  RIGHTS. 

is  true  between  the  sexes,  as  much  as  between  indi 
viduals. 

Make  the  case  our  own.  Is  there  any  man  here  willing 
to  resign  his  own  right  to  vote,  and  trust  his  welfare  and 
his  earnings  entirely  to  the  votes  of  others  ?  Suppose  any 
class  of  men  should  condescendingly  offer  to  settle  for  us 
our  capacity  or  our  calling,  —  to  vote  for  us,  to  choose  our 
sphere  for  us, — how  ridiculously  impertinent  we  should 
consider  it !  Yet  few  have  the  good  sense  to  laugh  at  the 
consummate  impertinence  with  which  every  bar-room 
brawler,  every  third-rate  scribbler,  undertakes  to  settle 
the  sphere  of  the  Martineaus  and  the  De  Staels  !  With, 
what  gracious  condescension  little  men  continue  to  lec 
ture  and  preach  on  "  the  female  sphere  "  and  "  female 
duties  "  ! 

This  Convention  does  not  undertake  the  task  of  pro 
tecting  woman.  It  contends  that,  in  government,  every 
individual  should  be  endowed,  as  far  as  possible,  with  the 
means  of  protecting  himself.  This  is  far  more  the  truth 
when  we  deal  with  classes.  Every  class  should  be  en 
dowed  with  the  power  to  protect  itself.  Man  has  hitherto 
undertaken  to  settle  what  is  best  for  woman  in  the  way 
of  education  and  in  the  matter  of  property.  He  has  set 
tled  it  for  her,  that  her  duties  and  cares  are  too  great  to 
allow  her  any  time  to  take  care  of  her  own  earnings,  or  to 
take  her  otherwise  legitimate  share  in  the  civil  government 
of  the  country.  He  has  not  undertaken  to  say  that  the 
sailor  or  the  soldier,  in  active  service,  when  lie  returns 
from  his  voyage  or  his  camp,  is  not  free  to  deposit  his 
vote  in  the  ballot-box.  He  has  not  undertaken  to  say 
that  the  manufacturer,  whose  factories  cover  whole  town 
ships,  who  is  up  early  and  lies  down  late,  who  has  to 
borrow  the  services  of  scores  to  help  him  in  the  manage 
ment  of  his  vast  estate,  —  he  does  not  say  that  such  a  man 
cannot  get  time  to  study  politics,  and  ought  therefore  tc 


WOMAN'S  RIGHTS.  23 

De  deprived  of  his  right  to  vote  with  his  fellow-citizens. 
He  has  not  undertaken  to  say  that  the  lawyer  may  not 
vote,  though  his  whole  time  is  spent  in  the  courts,  until  he 
knows  nothing  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  streets.  O  no ! 
But  as  for  woman,  her  time  must  be  all  so  entirely  filled 
in  taking  care  of  her  household,  her  cares  must  be  so 
extensive,  that  neither  those  of  soldiers  nor  sailors  nor 
merchants  can  be  equal  to  them  ;  she  has  not  a  moment 
to  qualify  herself  for  politics !  Woman  cannot  be  spared 
long  enough  from  the  kitchen  to  put  in  a  vote,  though 
Abbott  Lawrence  can  be  spared  from  the  counting-house, 
though  General  Gaines  or  Scott  can  be  spared  from  the 
camp,  though  the  Lorings  and  the  Choates  can  be  spared 
from  the  courts.  (This  is  the  argument:  Stephen  Girard 
cannot  go  to  Congress  ;  he  is  too  busy  ;  therefore,  no  man 
ever  shall.  Because  General  Scott  has  gone  to  Mexico, 
and  cannot  be  President,  therefore  no  man  shall  be.  Be 
cause  A.  B.  is  a  sailor,  gone  on  a  whaling  voyage,  to  be 
absent  for  three  years,  and  cannot  vote,  therefore  no  male 
inhabitant  ever  shall.  Logic  how  profound  !  how  con 
clusive  !  Yet  this  is  the  exact  reasoning  in  the  case  of 
woman ^  Take  up  the  newspapers.  See  the  sneers  at 
this  movement.  "  Take  care  of  the  children,"  "  Make 
the  clothes,"  "  See  that  they  are  mended,"  "  See  that 
the  parlors  are  properly  arranged."  Suppose  we  grant  it 
all.  Are  there  no  women  but  housekeepers  ?  no  women 
but  mothers  ?  O  yes,  many  !  Suppose  we  grant  that 
the  cares  of  a  household  are  so  heavy  that  they  are  greater 
than  the  cares  of  the  president  of  a  college  ;  that  he  who 
has  the  charge  of  some  hundreds  of  youths  is  less  op 
pressed  with  care  than  the  woman  with  three  rooms  and 
two  children  ;  that  though  President  Sparks  has  time  for 
politics,  Mrs.  Brown  has  not.  Grant  that,  and  still  we 
claim  that  you  should  be  true  to  your  theory,  and  allow  to 
single  women  those  rights  which  she  who  is  the  mistress 


24  WOMAN'S  RIGHTS. 

of  a  household  and  mother  of  a  family  has  no  time  to 
exercise. 

"  Let  women  vote  !  "  cries  one.  "  Why,  wives  and 
daughters  might  be  Democrats,  while  their  fathers  and 
husbands  were  Whigs.  It  would  never  do..  It  would 
produce  endless  quarrels."  And  the  self-satisfied  objec 
tor  thinks  he  has  settled  the  question. 

But,  if  the  principle  be  a  sound  one,  why  not  apply  it 
in  a  still  more  important  instance  ?  Difference  of  religion 
breeds  more  quarrels  than  difference  in  politics.  Yet  we 
allow  women  to  choose  their  own  religious  creeds,  although 
we  thereby  run  the  risk  of  wives  being  Episcopalians  while 
their  husbands  are  Methodists,  or  daughters  being  Cath 
olics  while  their  fathers  are  Calvinists.  Yet  who,  this 
side  of  Turkey,  dare  claim  that  the  law  should  compel 
women  to  have  no  religious  creed,  or  adopt  that  of  their 
male  relatives  ?  Practically,  this  freedom  in  religion  has 
made  no  difficulty  ;  and  probably  equal  freedom  in  politics 
would  make  as  little. 

It  is,  after  all,  of  little  use  to  argue  these  social  ques 
tions.  These  prejudices  never  were  reasoned  up,  and, 
my.  word  for  it,  they  will  never  be  reasoned  down.  The 
freedom  of  the  press,  the  freedom  of  labor,  the  freedom  of 
the  race  in  its  lowest  classes,  was  never  argued  to  success. 
The  moment  you  can  get  woman  to  go  out  into  the  high 
way  of  life,  and  show  by  active  valor  what  God  has  created 
her  for,  that  moment  this  question  is  settled  forever.  One 
solid  fact  of  a  woman's  making  her  fortune  in  trade  will 
teach  the  male  sex  what  woman's  capacity  is.  I  say, 
therefore,  to  women,  there  are  two  paths  before  you  in 
this  reform  :  one  is,  take  all  the  laws  have  left  you,  with  a 
confident  and  determined  hand  ;  the  other  is,  cheer  and 
encourage,  by  your  sympathy  and  aid,  those  noble  women 
who  are  willing  to  be  the  pioneers  in  this  enterprise.  See 
that  you  stand  up  the  firm  supporters  of  those  bold  and 


WOMAN'S  RIGHTS.  25 

fearless  ones  who  undertake  to  lead  their  sisters  in  this 
movement.  If  Elizabeth  Blackwell,  who,  trampling  under 
foot  the  sneers  of  the  other  sex,  took  her  maiden  reputa 
tion  in  her  hand,  and  walked  the  hospitals  of  Europe, 
comes  back  the  accomplished  graduate  of  them,  to  offer 
her  services  to  the  women  of  America,  and  to  prove  that 
woman,  equally  with  man,  is  qualified  to  do  the  duties  and 
receive  the  honors  and  rewards  of  the  healing  art,  see  to 
it,  women,  that  you  greet  her  efforts  with  your  smiles. 
Hasten  to  her  side,  and  open  your  households  to  her 
practice.  Demand  to  have  the  experiment  fairly  tried, 
before  you  admit  that,  in  your  sickness  and  in  your  dan 
gers,  woman  may  not  stand  as  safely  by  your  bedside  as 
man.  If  you  will  but  be  true  to  each  other,  on  some  of 
these  points,  it  is  in  the  power  of  woman  to  settle,  in  a 
great  measure,  this  question.  Why  ask  aid  from  the  other 
sex  at  all  ?  Theories  are  but  thin  and  unsubstantial  air 
against  the  solid  fact  of  woman  mingling  with  honor  and 
profit  in  the  various  professions  and  industrial  pursuits  of 
life.  Would  women  be  true  to  each  other,  by  smoothing 
the  pathway  of  each  other's  endeavors,  it  is  in  their  power 
to  settle  one  great  aspect  of  this  question,  without  any 
statute  in  such  case  made  and  provided.  I  say,  TAKE 
your  rights  !  There  is  no  law  to  prevent  it,  in  one  half 
of  the  instances.  If  the  prejudices  of  the  other  sex  and 
the  supineness  of  your  own  prevent  it,  there  is  no  help  for 
you  in  the  statute-books.  It  is  for  you  but  to  speak,  and 
the  doors  of  all  medical  hospitals  are  open  for  the  women 
by  whom  you  make  it  known  that  you  intend  to  be  served. 
Let  us  have  no  separate,  and  therefore  necessarily  inferior, 
schools  for  women.  Let  us  have  no  poor  schools,  feebly 
endowed,  where  woman  must  go  to  gather  what  help  she 
may,  from  second-rate  professors,  in  one  branch  of  a  pro 
fession.  No  !  Mothers,  daughters,  sisters  !  say  to  hus 
band,  father,  brother,  "  If  this  life  is  dear  to  you,  I  intend 


26  WOMAN'S  RIGHTS. 

to  trust  it,  in  my  hour  of  danger,  to  a  sister's  hand.  See 
to  it,  therefore,  you  who  are  the  guides  of  society  and 
heads  of  those  institutions,  if  you  love  your  mother,  sister, 
wife,  daughter,  see  to  it  that  you  provide  these  chosen 
assistants  of  mine  the  means  to  become  disciplined  and 
competent  advisers  in  that  momentous  hour,  for  I  will 
have  no  other."  When  you  shall  say  that,  Harvard  Uni 
versity,  and  every  other  university,  and  every  medical 
institution,  will  hasten  to  open  their  doors.  You  who  long 
for  the  admission  of  woman  to  professional  life  and  the 
higher  ranks  of  intellectual  exertion,  up,  and  throw  into 
her  scale  this  omnipotent  weight  of  your  determination  to 
be  served  by  her,  and  by  no  other !  In  this  matter,  what 
you  decide  is  law. 

There  is  one  other  light  in  which  this  subject  is  to  be 
considered,  —  the  freedom  of  ballot ;  and  with  a  few  words 
upon  that,  I  will  close  these  desultory  remarks.  As  there 
is  no  use  in  educating  a  human  being  for  nothing,  so  the 
thing  is  an  impossibility.  Horace  Mann  says,  in  the  letter 
which  has  been  read  here,  that  he  intends  to  write  a  lec 
ture  on  Woman  ;  and  I  doubt  not  he  will  take  the  stand 
which  he  has  always  done,  that  she  should  be  book-taught 
for  some  dozen  years,  and  then  retire  to  domestic  life,  or 
the  school-room.  Would  he  give  sixpence  for  a  boy  who 
could  only  say  that  he  had  been  shut  up  for  those  years  in 
a  school  ?  The  unfledged  youth  who  comes  from  college, 
—  what  is  he  ?  He  is  a  man,  and  has  been  subjected  to 
seven  years'  tutoring ;  but  man  though  he  is,  until  he  has 
walked  up  and  down  the  paths  of  life,  until  he  receives  his 
education  in  the  discipline  of  the  world,  in  the  stimulus  of 
motive,  in  the  hope  of  gain,  in  the  desire  of  honor,  in  the 
love  of  reputation,  he  has  got,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  no 
education  at  all.  Profess  to  educate  woman  for  her  own 
amusement !  Profess  to  educate  her  in  science,  that  she 
may  go  home  and  take  care  of  her  cradle  !  Teach  her  the 


WOMAN'S   RIGHTS.  27 

depths  of  statesmanship  and  political  economy,  that  she 
may  smile  sweetly  when  her  husband  comes  home  !  "  It 
is  not  the  education  man  gets  from  books,"  it  was  well 
said  by  your  favorite  statesman,  "  but  the  lessons  he 
learns  from  life  and  society,  that  profit  him  most  highly." 
"  Le  monde  est  le  lime  des  femmes."  Of  this  book  you 
deprive  her.  You  give  her  nothing  but  man's  little 
printed  primers  ;  you  make  for  her  a  world  of  dolls,  and 
then  complain  that  she  is  frivolous.  You  deprive  her  of 
all  the  lessons  of  practical  out-door  life  ;  you  deprive  her 
of  all  the  stimulus  which  the  good  and  great  of  all  nations, 
all  societies,  have  enjoyed,  the  world's  honors,  its  gold, 
and  its  fame,  and  then  you  coolly  ask  of  her,  "  Why  art 
you  not  as  well  disciplined  as  we  are?-"  I  know  then 
are  great  souls  who  need  no  stimulus  but  love  of  trutl 
and  of  growth,  whom  mere  love  of  labor  allures  to  thi 
profoundest  investigations  ;  but  these  are  the  exceptions, 
not  the  rule.  We  legislate,  we  arrange  society,  for  thf. 
masses,  not  the  exceptions. 

Responsibility  is  one  instrument  —  a  great  instrument  — 
of  education,  both  moral  and  intellectual.  It  sharpens  tht 
faculties.  It  unfolds  the  moral  nature.  It  makes  the  care 
less  prudent,  and  turns  recklessness  into  sobriety.  Lool 
at  the  young  wife  suddenly  left  a  widow,  with  the  care  of 
her  children's  education  and  entrance  into  life  thrown  upor/ 
her.  How  prudent  and  sagacious  she  becomes !  How 
fruitful  in  resources  and  comprehensive  in  her  views ! 
How  much  intellect  and  character  she  surprises  her  old 
friends  with  !  Look  at  the  statesman  bold  and  reckless  in 
opposition  ;  how  prudent,  how  thoughtful,  how  timid,  he 
becomes,  the  moment  he  is  in  office,  and  feels  that  a  na 
tion's  welfare  hangs  on  his  decisions  !  Woman  can  never 
study  those  great  questions  that  interest  and  stir  most 
deeply  the  human  mind,  until  she  studies  them  under  the 
mingled  stimulus  and  check  of  this  responsibility.  And 


28  WOMAN'S  RIGHTS. 

until  her  intellect  has  been  tested  by  such  questions,  stud 
ied  under  such  influences,  we  shall  never  be  able  to  decide 
what  it  is. 

One  great  reason,  then,  besides  its  justice,  why  we 
would  claim  the  ballot  for  woman,  is  this  :  because  the  great 
school  of  this  people  is  the  jury-box  and  the  ballot-box. 
Tocqueville,  after  travelling  in  this  country,  went  away 
with  the  conviction  that,  valuable  as  the  jury  trial  was  for 
the  investigation  of  facts  and  defence  of  the  citizens,  its 
value  even  in  these  respects  was  no  greater  than  as  it  was 
the  school  of  civil  education  open  to  all  the  people.  The 
education  of  the  American  citizen  is  found  in  his  interest 
in  the  debates  of  Congress,  —  the  earnest  personal  interest 
with  which  he  seeks  to  fathom  political  questions.  It  is 
when  the  mind,  profoundly  stirred  by  the  momentous  stake 
at  issue,  rises  to  its  most  gigantic  efforts,  when  the  great  cri 
sis  of  some  national  convulsion  is  at  hand,  —  it  is  then  that 
strong  political  excitement  lifts  the  people  up  in  advance 
of  the  age,  heaves  a  whole  nation  on  to  a  higher  platform 
of  intellect  and  morality.  Great  political  questions  stir 
the  deepest  nature  of  one  half  the  nation ;  but  they  pass 
Par  above  and  over  the  heads  of  the  other  half.  Yet,  mean 
while,  theorists  wonder  that  the  first  have  their  whole 
nature  unfolded,  and  the  others  will  persevere  in  being 
dwarfed.  Now,  this  great,  world-wide,  practical,  ever- 
present  education  we  claim  for  woman.  Never,  until  it 
is  granted  her,  can  you  decide  what  will  be  her  ability. 
Deny  statesmanship  to  woman  ?  What !  to  the  sisters  of 
Elizabeth  of  England,  Isabella  of  Spain,  Maria  Theresa 
of  Austria ;  ay,  let  me  add,  of  Elizabeth  Heyrick,  who, 
when  the  intellect  of  all  England  was  at  fault,  and  wan 
dering  in  the  desert  of  a  false  philosophy,  —  when  Brougham 
and  Romilly,  Clarkson  and  Wilberforce,  and  all  the  other 
great  and  philanthropic  minds  of  England,  were  at  fault 
and  at  a  dead-lock  with  the  West  India  question  and  negro 


WOMAN'S  RIGHTS.  29 

slavery,  —  wrote  out,  with  the  statesmanlike  intellect  of 
a  Quaker  woman,  the  simple  yet  potent  charm,  —  IMME 
DIATE,  UNCONDITIONAL  EMANCIPATION,  —  which  solved  the 
problem,  and  gave  freedom  to  a  race  !  How  noble  the 
conduct  of  those  men  !  With  an  alacrity  which  does  honok' 
to  their  statesmanship,  and  proves  that  they  recognized  the 
inspired  voice  when  they  heard  it,  they  sat  down  at  the 
feet  of  that  woman-statesman,  and  seven  years  under  her 
instruction  did  more  for  the  settlement  of  the  greatest  social 
question  that  had  ever  convulsed  England,  than  had  been 
done  by  a  century,  of  more  or  less  effort,  before.  O  no  1 
you  cannot  read  history,  unless  you  read  it  upside  down,, 
without  admitting  that  woman,  cramped,  fettered,  excluded ,, 
degraded  as  she  has  been,  has  yet  sometimes,  with  one  ray 
of  her  instinctive  genius,  done  more  to  settle  great  ques 
tioris  than  all  the  cumbrous  intellect  of  the  other  sex  ha/» 
achieved. 

^  It  is.  therefore,  on  the  ground  of  rmtnrnl  jnst.iV.fi,  and  r»> 
the  ground  again  of  the  highest  expediency,  and  yet  agaii/ 
it  is  because  woman,  as  an  immortal  and  intellectual  being , 
has  a  right  to  all  the  means  of  pd^catirmT  —it  is  on  thesr 
jrwY[]nf1g  tha*  ^yp  rinim  for  h  cjlthe^  ci  vil  rights  and  privilege^ 

I  will  not  enlarge  now  on  another  most  important  aspect 
of  this  question,  the  value  of  the  contemplated  change  in  a 
physiological  point  of  view.  Our  dainty  notions  have  made/ 
woman  such  a  hot-house  plant,  that  one  half  the  sex  are 
invalids.  The  mothers  of  the  next  generation  are  invalids. 
Better  that  our  women,  like  the  German  and  Italian  girl^, 
should  labor  on  the  highway,  and  share  in  the  toil  of  har 
vest,  tl>an  pine  and  sicken  in  the  in-door  and  sedentary 
routine  to  which  our  superstition  condemns  them.  But  I 
leave  this  sad  topic  for  other  hands. 

One  word  more.  We  heard  to-day  a  very  profound 
and  eloquent  address  as  to  the  course  which  it  is  most 


30  WOMAN'S   RIGHTS. 

expedient  for  wom<ui  to  pursue  in  regard  to  the  inadequate 
remuneration  extended  to  her  sex.  The  woman  of  do 
mestic  life  receives  but  about  one  third  the  amount  paid 
fco  a  man  for  similar  or  far  lighter  services.  The  woman 
of  out-door  labor  has  about  the  same.  The  best  woman 
employments  are  subject  to  a  discount  of  some  forty  or  fifty 
per  cent  on  the  wages  paid  to  males.  It  is  futile,  if  ;t 
were  just,  to  blame  individuals  for  this.  We  have  all 
been  burdened  long  by  a  common  prejudice  and  a  common 
ignorance.  The  remedy  is  not  to  demand  that  the  manu 
facturer  shall  pay  his  workmen  more,  that  the  employer 
of  domestics  shall  pay  them  more.  It  is  not  the  capitalist's 
fault.  We  inveigh  against  the  wealthy  capitalist,  but  it  is 
not  exclusively  his  fault.  It  is  as  much  the  fault  of  society 
itself.  It  is  the  fault  of  that  timid  conservatism,  which 
nets  its  face  like  flint  against  everything  new ;  of  a  servile 
press,  which  knows  so  well,  by  personal  experience,  how 
much  fools  and  cowards  are  governed  by  a  sneer.  It  is 
the  fault  of  silly  women,  ever  holding  up  their  idea  of 
what  is  "  lady-like  "  as  a  Gorgon  head  to  frighten  their 
fiisters  from  earning  bread,  —  themselves,  in  their  folly, 
f,he  best  answer  to  a  weak  prejudice  they  mistake  for 
argument.  It  is  the  fault  of  that  pulpit  which  declares  it 
mdecorous  in  woman  to  labor,  except  in  certain  occupa 
tions,  and  thus  crowds  the  whole  mass  of  working-women 
mto  two  or  three  employments,  making  them  rivet  each 
other's  chains.  Do  you  ask  me  the  reason  of  the  low 
wages  paid  for  female  labor  ?  It  is  this.  There  are  about 
as  many  women  as  men  obliged  to  rely  for  bread  on  their 
own  toil.  Man  seeks  employment  anywhere,  and  of  any 
kind.  No  one  forbids  him.  If  he  cannot  make  a  living 
by  one  trade,  he  takes  another ;  and  the  moment  any  trade 
becomes  so  crowded  as  to  make  wages  fall,  men  leave  it, 
and  wages  will  rise  again.  Not  so  with  woman.  The 
whole  mass  of  women  must  find  employment  in  two  or 


WOMAN'S  RIGHTS.  31 

three  occupations.  The  consequence  is,  there  are  more 
women  in  each  of  these  than  can  be  employed  ;  they  kill 
each  other  by  competition.  Suppose  there  is  as  much 
sewing  required  in  a  city  as  one  thousand  hands  can  do. 
If  the  tailors  could  -find  only  five  hundred  women  to  sew, 
they  would  be  obliged  to  pay  them  whatever  they  asked. 
But  let  the  case  be,  as  it  usually  is,  that  there  are  five 
thousand  worrien  waiting  for  that  work,  unable  to  turn  to 
any  other  occupation,  and  doomed  to  starve  if  they  fail  to 
get  a  share  of  that ;  we  see  at  once  that  their  labor,  being 
a  drug  in  the  market,  must  be  poorly  paid  for.  She  can 
not  say,  as  man  would,  "  Give  me  so  much,  or  I  will  seek 
another  trade."  She  must  accept  whatever  is  offered,  and 
often  underbid  her  sister,  that  she  may  secure  a  share. 
Any  article  sells  cheap,  when  there  is  too  much  of  it  in 
the  market.  Woman's  labor  is  cheap  because  there  is  too 
much  of  it  in  the  market.  All  women's  trades  are  over 
crowded,  because  they  have  only  two  or  three  to  choose 
from.  But  open  to  her,  now,  other  occupations.  Open 
to  her  the  studio  of  the  artist,  —  let  her  enter  there  ;  open 
to  her  the  office  practice,  at  least,  of  the  lawyers,  —  let 
her  go  there  ;  open  to  her  all  in-door  trades  of  society,  to 
begin  with,  and  let  women  monopolize  them.  Take  from 
the  crowded  and  starved  ranks  of  the  needlewomen  of 
New  York  some  for  the  arts  of  design,  some  for  the  coun 
ter,  some  to  minister  in  our  public  libraries,  some  for  our 
public  registries,  some  to  keep  merchants'  accounts,  and 
some  to  feel  the  pulse ;  and  the  consequence  will  be,  that, 
like  every  other  independent  laborer,  like  their  male  breth 
ren,  they  may  make  their  own  terms,  and  will  be  fairly 
paid  for  their  labor.  It  is  competition  in  too  narrow  lists 
that  starves  women  in  our  cities  ;  and  those  lists  are  drawn 
narrow  by  superstition  and  prejudice. 

Woman  is  ground  down,   by  the    competition   of  her 
sisters,  to  the  very  point  of  starvation.     Heavily  taxed, 


32  WOMAN'S   RIGHTS. 

ill-paid,  in  degradation  and  misery,  is  it  to  be  wondered  at 
that  she  yields  to  the  temptation  of  wealth  ?  It  is  the 
same  with  men  ;  and  thus  we  recruit  the  ranks  of  vice  by 
the  prejudices  of  custom  and  society.  We  corrupt  the 
whole  social  fabric,  that  woman  may  -be  confined  to  two 
or  three  employments.  How  much  do  we  suffer  through 
the  tyranny  of  prejudice  !  When  we  penitently  and 
gladly  give  to  the  energy  and  the  intellect  and  the  enter 
prise  of  woman  their  proper  reward,  their  appropriate 
employment,  this  question  of  wages  will  settle  itself;  and 
it  will  never  be  settled  at  all  until  then. 

This  question  is  intimately  connected  with  the  great 
social  problem,  —  the  vices  of  cities.  You  who  hang  your 
heads  in  terror  and  shame,  in  view  of  the  advancing  de 
moralization  of  modern  civilized  life,  and  turn  away  with 
horror-struck  faces,  look  back  now  to  these  social  preju 
dices,  which  have  made  you  close  the  avenues  of  profitable 
employment  in  the  face  of  woman,  and  reconsider  the 
conclusions  you  have  made  !  Look  back,  I  say,  and  see 
whether  you  are  surely  right  here.  Come  up  with  us  and 
argue  the  question,  and  say  whether  this  most  artificial 
delicacy,  this  childish  prejudice,  on  whose  Moloch  altar 
you  sacrifice  the  virtue  of  so  many,  is  worthy  the  exalted 
worship  you  pay  it.  Consider  a  moment.  From  what 
sources  are  the  ranks  of  female  profligacy  recruited  ?  A 
few  mere  giddiness  hurries  to  ruin.  Their  protection 
would  be  in  that  character  and  sound  common-sense  which 
a  wider  interest  in  practical  life  would  generally  create. 
In  a  few,  the  love  of  sensual  gratification,  grown  over- 
strong,  because  all  the  other  powers  are  dormant  for  want 
of  exercise,  wrecks  its  unhappy  victim.  The  medicine  for 
these  would  be  occupation,  awaking  intellect,  and  stirring 
their  highest  energies.  Give  any  one  an  earnest  interest 
in  life,  something  to  do,  something  that  kindles  emulation, 
and  soon  the  gratification  of  the  senses  sinks  into  proper 


WOMAN'S  RIGHTS.  33 

subordination.  It  is  idle  heads  that  are  tempted  to  mis 
chief:  and  she  is  emphatically  idle  half  of  whose  nature  is 
unemployed.  Why  does  man  so  much  oftener  than 
woman  surmount  a  few  years  or  months  of  sensual  grati 
fication,  and  emerge  into  a  worthier  life  ?  It  is  not  solely 
because  the  world's  judgment  is  so  much  harder  upon  her. 
Man  can  immerse  himself  in  business  that  stirs  keenly  all 
his  faculties,  and  thus  he  smothers  passion  in  honorable 
cares.  An  ordinary  woman,  once  fallen,  has  no  busy  and 
stirring  life  in  which  to  take  refuge,  where  intellect  will 
contend  for  mastery  with  passion,  and  where  virtue  is 
braced  by  high  and  active  thoughts.  Passion  comes  back 
to  the  "empty"  though  "swept  and  garnished"  cham 
bers,  bringing  with  him  more  devils  than  before.  But, 
undoubtedly,  the  great  temptation  to  this  vice  is  the  love 
of  dress,  of  wealth,  and  the  luxuries  it  secures.  Facts  will 
jostle  theories  aside.  Whether  we  choose  to  acknowledge 
it  or  not,  there  are  many  women,  earning  two  or  three 
dollars  a  week,  who  feel  that  they  are  as  capable  as  their 
brothers  of  earning  hundreds,  if  they  could  be  permitted 
to  exert  themselves  as  freely.  Fretting  to  see  the  coveted 
rewards  of  life  forever  forbidden  them,  they  are  tempted 
to  shut  their  eyes  on  the  character  of  the  means  by  which 
a  taste,  however  short,  may  be  gained  of  the  wealth  and 
luxury  they  sigh  for.  Open  to  man  a  fair  field  for  his 
industry,  and  secure  to  him  its  gains,  and  nine  hundred 
and  ninety-nine  men  out  of  every  thousand  will  disdain  to 
steal.  Open  to  woman  a  fair  field  for  her  industry,  let 
her  do  anything  her  hands  find  to  do,  and  enjoy  her  gains, 
and  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  women  out  of  every 
thousand  will  disdain  to  debase  themselves  for  dress  or  ease. 
Of  this  great  social  problem  —  to  cure  or  lessen  the  vice 
of  cities — -there  is  no  other  solution,  except  what  this 
movement  offers  you.  It  is,  to  leave  woman  to  choose 
her  own  employments  for  herself,  responsible,  as  we  are, 

3 


34  WOMAN'S  RIGHTS. 

to  the  common  Creator,  and  not  to  her  fellow-man.  I 
exhort  you,  therefore,  to  look  at  this  question  in  the  spirit 
in  which  I  have  endeavored  to  present  it  to  you.  It  is  no 
fanciful,  no  superficial  movement,  based  on  a  few  indi 
vidual  tastes,  in  morbid  sympathy  with  tales  of  individual 
suffering.  It  is  a  great  social  protest  against  the  .very 
fabric  of  society.  It  is  a  question  which  goes  down  —  we 
admit  it,  and  are  willing  to  meet  the  issue  —  goes  down 
beneath  the  altar  at  which  you  worship,  goes  down  be 
neath  this  social  system  in  which  you  live.  And  it  is  true 
—  no  denying  it — that,  if  we  are  right,  the  doctrines 
preached  from  New  England  pulpits  are  wrong  ;  it  is  true 
that  all  this  affected  horru:  at  woman's  deviation  from  her 
sphere  is  a  mistake,  —  a  mistake  fraught  with  momentous 
consequences.  Understand  us.  We  blink  no  fair  issue. 
We  throw  down  the  gauntlet.  We  have  counted  the 
cost ;  we  know  the  yoke  and  burden  we  assume.  We 
know  the  sneers,  the  lying  frauds  of  misstatement  and 
misrepresentation,  that  await  us.  We  have  counted  all  ; 
and  it  is  but  the  dust  in  the  balance  and  the  small  dust  in 
the  measure,  compared  with  the  inestimable  blessing  of 
doing  justice  to  one  half  of  the  human  species,  of  curing 
this  otherwise  immedicable  wound,  stopping  this  over 
flowing  fountain  of  corruption,  at  the  very  source  of 
civilized  life.  Truly,  it  is  the  great  question  of  the  age. 
It  looks  all  others  out  of  countenance.  It  needs  little  aid 
from  legislation.  Specious  objections,  after  all,  are  not 
arguments.  We  know  we  are  right.  We  only  ask  an 
opportunity  to  argue  the  question,  to  set  it  full  before  tl:e 
people,  and  then  leave  it  to  the  intellects  and  the  hearts 
of  our  country,  confident  that  the  institutions  under 
which  we  live,  and  the  education  which  other  reforms 
have  already  given  to  both  sexes,  have  created  men  and 
women  capable  of  solving  a  problem  even  more  difficult, 
and  meeting  a  change  even  more  radical,  than  this. 


PUBLIC    OPINION.* 


M 


R.  PRESIDENT:  — I  have  been  thinking,  while 
sitting  here,  of  the  different  situations  of  the  Anti- 
slavery  cause  now  and  one  year  ago,  when  the  last  anni 
versary  of  this  Society  was  held.  To  some,  it  may  seem 
that  we  had  more  sources  of  interest  and  of  public  excite 
ment  on  that  occasion  than  we  have  now.  We  had  with  us, 
during  a  portion,  at  least,  of  that  session,  the  eloquent  ad- 
^bcate  of  our  cause  on  the  other  side  of  the  water,  f  We 
had  the  local  excitement  and  the  deep  interest  which  the 
first  horror  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill  had  aroused.  We 
had,  I  believe,  some  fugitives,  just  arrived  from  the  house 
of  bondage.  It  may  seem  to  many  that,  meeting  as  we  do 
to-day  robbed  of  all  these,  we  must  be  content  with  a  ses 
sion  more  monotonous  and  less  effectual  in  arousing  the 
community.  But  when  we  look  over  the  whole  land ; 
when  we  look  back  upon  what  has  taken  place  in  our  own 
Commonwealth,  at  Christiana,  at  Syracuse  ;  look  at  the 
passage  through  the  country  of  the  great  Hungarian  ;  at 
the  present  state  of  the  public  mind,  —  it  seems  to  me  that 
no  year,  during  the  existence  of  the  Society,  has  presented 
more  encouraging  aspects  to  the  Abolitionists.  The  views 
which  our  friend  (Parker  Pillsbury)  has  just  presented 
are  those  upon  which,  in  our  most  sober  calculation,  we 

*  Speech  before  the  Massachusetts  Antislavery  Society,  at  the  Melodeon, 
Wednesday  evening,  January  28,  1852. 
t  George  Thompson,  Esq.,  M.  P. 


36  PUBLIC   OPINION. 

ought  to  rely.  Give  us  time,  and,  as  he  said,  talk  is  all- 
powerful.  We  are  apt  to  feel  ourselves  overshadowed  in 
the  presence  of  colossal  institutions.  We  are  apt,  in  com 
ing  up  to  a  meeting  of  this  kind,  to  ask  what  a  few  hun 
dred  or  a  few  thousand  persons  can  do  against  the  weight 
of  government,  the  mountainous  odds  of  majorities,  the 
influence  of  the  press,  the  power  of  the  pulpit,  the  organi 
zation  of  parties,  the  omnipotence  of  wealth.  At  times,  to 
carry  a  favorite  purpose,  leading  statesmen  have  en -.1  sav 
ored  to  cajole  the  people  into  the  idea  that  this  age  was 
like  the  past,  and  that  a  "  rub-a-dub  agitation,"  as  ours  is 
contemptuously  styled,  was  only  to  be  despised.  The  time 
has  been  when,  as  our  friend  observed,  from  the  steps  of 
the  Revere  House — yes,  and  from  the  depots  of  New 
York  railroads  —  Mr.  Webster  has  described  this  Anti- 
•  slavery  movement  as  a  succession  of  lectures  in  school- 
houses, —  the  .mere  efforts  of  a  few  hundred  men  aft 
women  to  talk  together,  excite  each  other,  arouse  the 
public,  and  its  only  result  a  little  noise.  He  knew  better. 
He  knew  better  the  times  in  which  he  lived.  No  matter 
where  you  meet  a  dozen  earnest  men  pledged  to  a  new 
idea,  —  wherever  you  have  met  them,  you  have  met  the^ 
beginning  of  a  revolution.  Revolutions  are  not  made  : 
they  come.  A  revolution  is  as  natural  a  growth  as  an 
oak.  It  comes  out  of  the  past.  Its  foundations  are  laid 
far  back.  The  child  feels  ;  he  grows  into  a  man,  and 
thinks ;  another,  perhaps,  speaks,  and  the  world  acts  out 
the  thought.  And  this  is  the  history  of  modern  society. 
Men  undervalue  the  Antislavery  movement,  because 
they  imagine  you  can  always  put  your  finger  on  some 
illustrious  moment  in  history,  and  say,  here  commenced 
the  great  change  which  has  come  over  the  nation.  Not  so. 
The-  beginning  of  great  changes  is  like  the  rise  of  the  Mis 
sissippi.  A  child  must  stoop  and  gather  away  the  pebbles 
to  find  it.  But  soon  it  swells  broader  and  broader,  bears 


PUBLIC   OPINION.  37 

on  its  ample  bosom  the  navies  of  a  mighty  republic,  fills 
the  Gulf,  and  divides  a  continent. 

I  remember  a  story  of  Napoleon  which  illustrates  my 
meaning.  We  are  apt  to  trace  his  control  of  France  to 
some  noted  victory,  to  the  time  when  he  camped  in  the 
Tuileries,  or  when  he  dissolved  the  Assembly  by  the 
stamp  of  his  foot.  He  reigned  in  fact  when  his  hand  \vas 
first  felt  on  the  helm  of  the  vessel  of  state,  and  that  was 
far  back  of  the  time  when  he  had  conquered  in  Italy,  or 
his  name  had  been  echoed  over  two  continents.  It  was 
on  the  day  when  five  hundred  irresolute  men  were  met  in 
that  Assembly  which  called  itself,  and  pretended  to  be,  the 
government  of  France.  They  heard  that  the  mob  of  Paris 
was  coining  the  next  morning,  thirty  thousand  strong,  to 
turn  them,  as  was  usual  in  those  days,  out  of  doors.  And 
where  did  this  seemingly  great  power  go  for  its  support  and 
refuge  ?  They  sent  Tallien  to  seek  out  a  boy  lieutenant,  — 
the  shadow  of  an  officer,  —  so  thin  and  pallid  that,  when  he 
was  placed  on  the  stand  before  them,  the  President  of  the 
Assembly,  fearful,  if  the  fate  of  France  rested  on  the 
shrunken  form,  the  ashy  cheek  before  him,  that  all  hope 
was  gone,  asked,  "Young  man,  can  you  protect  the  As 
sembly?"  And  the  stern  lips  of  the  Corsican  boy  parted 
only  to  reply,  "  I  always  do  what  I  undertake."  Then 
and  there  Napoleon  ascended  his  throne ;  and  the  next  . 
day,  from  the  steps  of  St.  Roche,  thundered  forth  the  1 
cannon  which  taught  the  mob  of  Paris,  for  the  first  time, 
that  it  had  a  master.  That  was  the  commencement  of  the 
Empire.  So  the  Antislavery  movement  commenced  un 
heeded  in  that  "  obscure  hole  "  which  Mayor  Otis  could 
not  find,  occupied  by  a  printer  and  a  black  boy. 
£jn.  working  these  great  changes,  in  such  an  age  as  ours, 
the  so-called  statesman  has  far  less  influence  than  the  many 
little  men  who,  at  various  points,  are  silently  maturing 
a  regeneration  of  public  opinion^  This  is  a  reading  and 


38  PUBLIC   OPINION. 

thinking  age,  and  gretit  interests  at  stake  quicken  the  gen 
eral  intellect.  Stagnant  times  have  been  when  a  great 
mind,  anchored  in  error,  might  snag  the  slow-moving  cur- 

t  rent  of  society.  Such  is  not  our  era.  Nothing  but  Free- 
idom,  Justice,  and  Truth  is  of  any  permanent  advantage  to 
the  mass  of  mankind.  To  these  society,  left  to  itself,  is 
always  tending.  In  our  day,  great  questions  about  them 

/have  called  forth  all  the  energies  of  the  common  mind. 

/JError  suffers  sad  treatment  in  the  shock  of  eager  intellects. 
u  Everybody,"  said  Talleyrand,  "  is  cleverer  than  any 
body  "  ;  and  any  name,  however  illustrious,  which  links 
itself  to  abuses,  is  sure  to  be  overwhelmed  by  the  impetu 
ous  current  of  that  society  which  (thanks  to  the  press  and 
a  reading  public)  is  potent,  always,  to  clear  its  own  chan 
nel.  Thanks  to  the  Printing-Press,  the  people  now  do 
their  own  thinking,  and  statesmen,  as  they  are  styled,  — 
men  in  office,  —  have  ceased  to  be  either  the  leaders  or  the 
clogs  of  society. 

This  view  is  one  that  Mr.  Webster  ridiculed  in  the 
depots  of  New  York.  The  time  has  come  when  he  is 
obliged  to  change  his  tone ;  when  he  is  obliged  to  retrace 
his  steps,  —  to  acknowledge  the  nature  and  the  character 
of  the  age  in  which  he  lives.  Kossuth  comes  to  this  coun 
try,  penniless,  and  an  exile  ;  conquered  on  his  own  soil ; 
flung  out  as  a  weed  upon  the  waters ;  nothing  but  his  voice 
left ;  —  and  the  Secretary  of  State  must  meet  him.  Now, 
let  us  see  what  he  says  of  his  "  rub-a-dub  agitation," 
which  consists  of  the  voice  only,  —  of  the  tongue,  which 
•)ur  friend  Pillsbury  has  described.  This  is  that  "  tongue  " 
which  the  impudent  statesman  declared,  from  the  drunken 
steps  of  the  Revere  House,  ought  to  be  silenced,  —  this 
tongue,  which  was  a  "  rub-a-dub  agitation  "  to  be  despised, 
when  he  spoke  to  the  farmers  of  New  York. 

He  says,  "  We  are  too  much  inclined  to  underrate  the 
power  of  moral  influence."  Who  is  ?  Nobody  but  a  Re- 


PUBLIC   OPINION.  39 

vere  House  statesman.  "  We  are  too  much  inclined  to 
underrate  the  power  of  moral  influence,  and  the  influence 
of  public  opinion,  and  the  influence  of  the  principles  to 
which  great  men  —  the  lights  of  the  world  and  of  the  pres 
ent  age — have  given  their  sanction.  Who  doubts  that, 
in  our  struggle  for  liberty  and  independence,  the  majestic 
eloquence  of  Chatham,  the  profound  reasoning  of  Burke, 
the  burning  satire  and  irony  of  Colonel  Barre,  had  influ 
ences  upon  our  fortunes  here  in  America  ?  They  had 
influences  both  ways.  They  tended,  in  the  first  place, 
somewhat  to  diminish  the  confidence  of  the  British  minis 
try  in  their  hopes  of  success,  in  attempting  to  subjugate  an 
injured  people.  They  had  influence  another  way,  because 
all  along  the  coasts  of  the  country  —  and  all  our  people  in 
that  day  lived  upon  the  coast  —  there  was  not  a  reading 
man  who  did  not  feel  stronger,  bolder,  and  more  deter 
mined  in  the  assertion  of  his  rights,  when  these  exhilarat 
ing  accents  from  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament  reached 
him  from  beyond  the  seas." 

"  I  thank  thee,  Jew ! "  This  "  rub-a-dub  agitation,"  then, 
has  influence  both  ways.  It  diminishes  the  confidence  of 
the  Administration  in  its  power  to  execute  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law,  which  it  has  imposed  so  insolently  on  the 
people.  It  acts  on  the  reading  men  of  the  nation,  and  in 
that  single  fact  is  the  whole  story  of  the  change.  Wher 
ever  you  have  a  reading  people,  there  every  tongue,  every 
press,  is  a  power.  Mr.  Webster,  when  he  ridiculed  in 
New  York  the  agitation  of  the  Antislavery  body,  sup 
posed  he  was  living  in  the  old  feudal  times,  when  a  states 
man  was  an  integral  element  in  the  state,  an  essential 
power  in  himself.  He  must  have  supposed  himself  speak 
ing  in.  those  ages  when  a  great  man  outweighed  the 
masses.  He  finds  now  that  he  is  living  much  later,  in  an 
age  when  the  accumulated  common-sense  of  the  people 
outweighs  the  greatest  statesman  or  the  most  influential 


40  PUBLIC   OPINION. 

individual.  Let  me  illustrate  the  difference  of  our  timet 
and  the  past  in  this  matter,  by  their  difference  in  another 
respect.  The  time  has  been  when  men  cased  in  iron  from 
head  to  foot,  and  disciplined  by  long  years  of  careful  in 
struction,  went  to  battle.  Those  were  the  days  of  nobles 
and  knights ;  and  in  such  times,  ten  knights,  clad  in  steel, 
feared  not  a  whole  field  of  unarmed  peasantry,  and  a  hun 
dred  men-at-arms  have  conquered  thousands  of  the  com 
mon  people,  or  held  them  at  bay.  Those  were  the  times 
when  Winkelried,  the  Swiss  patriot,  led  his  host  against 
the  Austrian  phalanx,  and,  finding  it  impenetrable  to  the 
thousands  of  Swiss  who  threw  themselves  on  the  serried 
lances,  gathered  a  dozen  in  his  arms,  and,  drawing  them 
together,  made  thus  an  opening  in  the  close-set  ranks  of 
the  Austrians,  and  they  were  overborne  by  the  actual  mass 
of  numbers.  Gunpowder  came,  and  then  any  finger  that 
could  pull  a  trigger  was  equal  to  the  highest  born  and  the 
best  disciplined ;  knightly  armor,  and  horses  clad  in  steel, 
went  to  the  ground  before  the  courage  and  strength  which 
dwelt  in  the  arm  of  the  peasant,  as  well  as  that  of  the 
prince.  What  gunpowder  did  for  war,  the  printing-press 
has  done  for  the  mind,  and  the  statesman  is  no  longer  clad 
in  the  steel  of  special  education,  but  every  reading  man  is  his 
judge.  Every  thoughtful  man,  the  country  through,  who 
makes  up  an  opinion,  is  his  jury  to  which  he  answers,  and  the 
tribunal  to  which  he  must  bow.  Mr.  Webster,  therefore, 
does  not  overrate  the  power  of  this  "  rub-a-dub  agitation," 
which  Kossuth  has  now  adopted,  "  stealing  our  thunder." 
[Laughter  and  applause.]  He  does  not  overrate  the  power 
of  this  "  rub-a-dub  agitation,"  when  he  says,  "  Another 
great  mistake,  gentlemen,  is  sometimes  made.  [Yes,  in 
Bowdoin  Square  !]  We  think  nothing  powerful  enough 
to  stand  before  despotic  power.  There  is  something  strong 
enough,  quite  strong  enough ;  and  if  properly  exerted,  it 
will  prove  itself  so ;  and  that  is,  the  power  of  intelligent 


PUBLIC   OPINION.  41 

public  opinion."  "  I  thank  tliee,  Jew  !  "  That  opinion 
is  formed,  not  only  in  Congress,  or  on  hotel  steps ;  it  is 
made  also  in  the  school-houses,  in  the  town-houses,  at  the 
hearth-stones,  in  the-  railroad-cars,  on  board  the  steam 
boats,  in  the  social  circle,  in  these  Antislavery  gatherings 
which  he  despises.  Mark  you :  TJiere  is  nothing  powerful 
enough  to  stand  before  it !  It  may  be  a  self-styled  divine 
institution ;  it  may  be  the  bank-vaults  of  New  England  ; 
it  may  be  the  mining  interests  of  Pennsylvania ;  it  may 
be  the  Harwich  fishermen,  whom  he  told  to  stand  by  the 
Union,  because  its  bunting  protected  their  decks ;  it  may 
be  the  factory  operative,  whom  he  told  to  uphold  the 
Union,  because  it  made  his  cloth  sell  for  half  a  cent 
more  a  yard ;  it  may  be  a  parchment  Constitution,  or 
even  a  Fugitive  Slave  Bill,  signed  by  Millard  Fillmore  ! ! 
—  no  matter,  all  are  dust  on  the  threshing-floor  of  a  read 
ing  public,  once  roused  to  indignation.  Remember  this, 
when  you  would  look  down  upon  a  meeting  of  a  few  hun 
dreds  in  the  one  scale,  and  the  fanatic  violence  of  State 
Street  in  the  other,  that  there  is  NOTHING,  Daniel  Webster 
being  witness,  strong  enough  to  stand  against  public  opin 
ion,  —  and  if  the  tongue  and  the  press  are  not  parents  of 
that,  what  is  ? 

I  Napoleon  said,  "  I  fear  three  newspapers  more  than  a 
hundred  thousand  bayonets."  Mr.  Webster  now  is  of  the 
same  opinion.  "  There  is  not  a  monarch  on  earth,"  he 
says,  "  whose  throne  is  not  liable  to  be  shaken  by  the 
progress  of  opinion  and  the  sentiment  of  the  just  and 
intelligent  part  of  the  people."  "  I  thank  thee,  Jew  !  '' 
We  have  been  told  often,  that  it  was  nothing  but  a  morbid 
sentiment  that  was  opposed  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill,  — 
it  was  a  sentiment  of  morbid  philanthropy.  Grant  it  all. 
But  take  care,  Mr.  Statesman  ;  cure  or  change  it  in  time, 
else  it  will  beat  all  your  dead  institutions  to  dust.  Hearts 
and  sentime  •-  *-s  are  alive,  and  we  all  know  that  the  gentlest 


12  PUBLIC   OPINION. 

of  Nature's  growths  or  motions  will,  in  time,  burst  asunder 
or  wear  away  the  proudest  dead- weight  man  can  heap 
upon  them.  If  this  be  the  power  of  the  gentlest  growth, 
let  the  stoutest  heart  tremble  before  the  tornado  of  a 
people  roused  to  terrible  vengeance  by  the  sight  of  long 
years  of  cowardly  and  merciless  oppression,  and  oft- 
repeated  instances  of  selfish  and  calculating  apostasy. 
You  may  build  your  Capitol  of  granite,  and  pile  it  high 
as  the  Rocky  Mountains ;  if  it  is  founded  on  or  mixed  up 
with  iniquity,  the  pulse  of  a  girl  will  in  time  beat  it  down. 
"  There  is  no  monarch  on  earth  whose  throne  is  not  liable 
to  be  shaken  by  the  sentiment  of  the  just  and  intelligent 
part  of  the  people."  What  is  this -but  a  recantation, — 
doing  penance  for  the  impudence  uttered  in  Bowdoin 
Square  ?  Surely  this  is  the  white  sheet  and  lighted  torch 
which  the  Scotch  Church  imposed  as  penance  on  its  erring 
members.  Who  would  imagine,  that  the  same  man  who 
said  of  the  public  discussion  of  the  Slavery  question,  that  it 
must  be  put  down,  could  have  dictated  this  sentiment,  — 
"  It  becomes  us,  in  the  station  which  we  hold,  to  let  that 
public  opinion,  so  far  as  we  form  it,  have  free  course  "  ? 
What  was  the  haughty  threat  we  heard  from  Bowdoin 
Square  a  year  ago  ?  "  This  agitation  must  be  put  down." 
Now,  "  It  becomes  us,  in  the  station  which  we  hold,  to  let 
that  public  opinion  have  free  course."  Behold  the  great 
doughface  cringing  before  the  calm  eye  of  Kossuth,  who 
had  nothing  but  "rub-a-dub  agitation"  with  which  to 
rescue  Hungary  from  the  bloody  talons  of  the  Austrian 
eagle  ! 

This  is  statesmanship  !  The  statesmanship  that  says  to 
the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  to-day,  "  Smother 
those  prejudices,"  and  to-morrow,  "  There  is  no  throne  on 
the  broad  earth  strong  enough  to  stand  up  against  the 
sentiment  of  justice."  What  is  that  but  the  "  preju 
dices  "  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  against 


PUBLIC   OPINION.  43 

man-hunting?  And  this  is  the  man  before  whom  the 
press  and  the  pulpit  of  the  country  would  have  had  the 
Abolitionists  bow  their  heads,  and  lay  their  mouths  in  the 
dust,  instead  of  holding  fast  to  the  eternal  principles  of 
justice  and  right ! 

It  would  be  idle,  to  be  sure,  to  base  any  argument  on 
an  opinion  of  Mr.  Webster's.  Like  the  chameleon,  he 
takes  his  hue,  on  these  subjects,  from  the  air  he  breathes. 
He  has  his  "  October  sun  "  opinion,  and  his  Faneuil 
Hall  opinions.  But  the  recantation  here  is  at  least  notice 
able  ;  and  his  testimony  to  the  power  of  the  masses  is 
more  valuable  as  coming  from  an  unwilling  witness.  The 
best  of  us  are  conscious  of  being,  at  times,  somewhat  awed 
by  the  colossal  institutions  about  us,  which  seem  to  be 
opposing  our  progress.  There  are  those  who  occasionally 
weary  of  this  moral  suasion,  and  sigh  for  something  tangi 
ble  ;  some  power  that  they  can  feel,  and  see  its  operation. 
The  advancing  tide  you  cannot  mark.  The  gem  forms 
unseen.  The  granite  increases  and  crumbles,  and  you  can 
hardly  mark  either  process.  The  great  change  in  a  na 
tion's  opinion  is  the  same.  We  stand  here  to-day,  and  if 
we  look  back  twenty  years,  we  can  see  a  change  in  public 
opinion  ;  yes,  we  can  see  a  great  change.  Then  the  great 
statesmen  had  pledged  themselves  not  to  talk  on  this  sub 
ject.  They  have  been  made  to  talk.  These  hounds 
have  been  whipped  into  the  traces  of  the  nation's  car,  not 
by  three  newspapers,  which  Napoleon  dreaded,  but  by  one. 
[Cheers.]  The  great  parties  of  the  country  have  been 
broken  to  pieces  and  crumbled.  The  great  sects  have 
been  broken  to  pieces.  Suppose  you  cannot  put  your 
finger  upon  an  individual  fact ;  still,  in  the  great  result, 
you  see  what  Webster  tells  us  in  his  speech :  "  De 
pend  upon  it,  gentlemen,  that  between  these  two  rival 
powers,  —  the  autocratic  power,  maintained  by  arms  and 
force,  and  the  popular  power,  maintained  by  opinion,  — 


44  PUBLIC   OPINION. 

the  former  js  constantly  decreasing  ;  and,  thank  God !  the 
latter  is  constantly  increasing.  Real  human  liberty  is 
gaining  the  ascendant ; —  [lie  must  feel  sad  at  that !]  — and 
the  part  which  we  have  to  act  in  all  this  great  drama 
is  to  show  ourselves  in  favor  of  those  rights  ;  to  uphold 
our  ascendency,  and  to  carry  it  on,  until  we  shall  see  it 
culminate  in  the  highest  heaven  over  our  heads." 

Now  I  look  upon  this  speech  as  the  most  remarkable 
Mr.  Webster  has  ever  made  on  the  antislavery  agitation 
to  which  we  are  devoted,  —  as  a  most  remarkable  confes 
sion,  under  the  circumstances.  I  read  it  here  and  to  you, 
because,  in  the  circle  I  see  around  me,  the  larger  propor 
tion  are  Abolitionists,  —  men  attached  to  the  movement 
which  this  meeting  represents,  —  men  whose  thoughts  are 
occasionally  occupied  with  the  causes  and  with  the  effects 
of  its  real  progress.  I  would  force  from  the  reluctant  lips 
of  the  Secretary  of  State  his  testimony  to  the  real  power 
of  the  masses.  I  said  that  the  day  was,  before  gunpowder, 
when  the  noble,  clad  in  steel,  was  a  match  for  a  thousand. 
Gunpowder  levelled  peasant  and  prince.  The  printing- 
press  has  done  the  same.  ^Injthe  midst  of  thinking  people, 
in  the  long  run,  there  are  no  so-called  "great"  men. 
The  accumulated  intellect  of  the  masses  is  greater  than 
the  heaviest  brain  God  ever  gave  to  a  single  man/t  Web 
ster,  though  he  may  gather  into  his  own  person  the 
confidence  of  parties,  and  the  attachment  of  thousands 
throughout  the  country,  is  but  a  feather's  weight  in  the 
balance  against  the  average  of  public  sentiment  on  the 
subject  of  slavery.  A  newspaper  paragraph,  a  county 
meeting,  a  gathering  for  conversation,  a  change  in  the 
character  of  a  dozen  individuals,  —  these  are  the  several 
fountains  and  sources  of  public  opinion.  And,  friends, 
when  we  gather,  month  after  month,  at  such  meetings  as 
these,  we  should  encourage  ourselves  with  considerations 
of  this  kind :  —  that  we  live  in  an  age  of  democratic 


PUBLIC   OPINION.  45 

equality  ;  that,  for  a  moment,  a  party  may  stand  against 
the  age,  but  in  the  end  it  goes  by  the  board  ;  that  the 
man  who  launches  a  sound  argument,  who  sets  on  two 
feet  a  startling  fact,  and  bids  it  travel  from  Maine  to 
Georgia,  is  just  as  certain  that  in  the  end  he  will  change 
the  government,  as  if,  to  destroy  the  Capitol,  he  had 
placed  gunpowder  under  the  Senate-chamber.  Natural 
philosophers  tell  us,  that,  if  you  will  only  multiply  the 
simplest  force  into  enough  time,  it  will  equal  the  greatest. 
So  it  is  with  the  slow  intellectual  movement  of  the  masses. 
It  can  scarcely  be  seen,  but  it  is  a  constant  movement :  it 
is  the  shadow  on  the  dial ;  never  still,  though  never  seen 
to  move  ;  it  is  the  tide,  it  is  the  ocean,  gaining  on  the 
proudest  and  strongest  bulwarks  that  human  .  art  or 
strength  can  build.  It  may  be  defied  for  a  moment,  but 
in  the  end  Nature  always  triumphs.  So  the  race,  if  it 
cannot  drag  a  Webster  along  with  it,  leaves  him  behind 
and  forgets  him.  [Loud  cheers.]  The  race  is  rich 
enough  to  afford  to  do  without  the  greatest  intellects  God 
ever  let  the  Devil  buy.  Stranded  along  the  past,  there  are 
a  great  many  dried  mummies  of  dead  intellects,  which  the 
race  found  too  heavy  to  drag  forward./  ' 
/_JL-_hail  the  almighty  power  of  the  tongue.  I  swear 
allegianceto"  tiie  omnipotence  otl  tJie"  press.  The  people 
never  err*  "  Vox  populi,  vox  Dei"  —  the  voice  of  the 
people  is  the  voice  of  GocL/  I  do  not  mean  this  of  any 
single  verdict  which  the  people  of  to-day  may  record.  In 
time,  the  selfishness  of  one  class  neutralizes  the  selfishness 
of  another.  The  interests  of  one  age  clash  against  the 
interests  of  another  jjput  in  the  great  result  the  race 
always  means  right.  jThe  people  always  mean  right,  and 
in  the  end  they  win  have  the  right.  I  believe  in  the 
twenty  millions  —  not  the  twenty  millions  that  live  now, 
necessarily  —  to  arrange  this  question  of  slavery,  which 
priests  and  politicians  have  sought  to  keep  out  of  sight 


46  PUBLIC   OPINION. 


have  kept  it  locked  up  in  the  Senate  -chamber,  they 
have  hidden  it  behind  the  communion-table,  they  have 
appealed  to  the  superstitious  and  idolatrous  veneration  for 
the  State  and  the  Union  to  avoid  this  question,  and  so 
have  kept  it  from  the  influence  of  the  great  democratic 
tendencies  of  the  masses.7  But  change  all  this,  drag  it 
from  its  concealment,  and  give  it  to  the  people  ;  launch  it 
on  the  age,  and  all  is  safe.  It  will  find  a  safe  harbor.  A 
man  is  always  selfish  enough  for  himself.  The  soldier 
will  be  selfish  enough  for  himself;  the  merchant  will  be 
selfish  enough  for  himself;  yes,  he  will  be  willing  to  go  to 
hell  to  secure  his  own  fortune,  but  he  will  not  be  ready  to 
go  there  to  make  the  fortune  of  his  neighbor.  Rarely 
is  any  man  willing  to  sacrifice  his  own  character  for  the 
benefit  of  his  neighbor  ;  and  whenever  we  shall  be  able  to 
show  this  nation  that  the  interests  of  a  class,  not  of  the 
whole,  the  interests  of  a  portion  of  the  country,  not  of  the 
masses,  are  subserved  by  holding  our  fellow-men  in  bond 
age,  then  we  shall  spike  the  guns  of  the  enemy,  or  get 
their  artillery  on  our  side. 

jT  want  you  to  turn  your  eyes  from  institutions  to  men. 
The  difficulty  of  the  present  day  and  with  us  is,  we  are 
bullied  by  institutions.  A  man  gets  up  in  the  pulpit,  or 
sits  on  the  bench,  and  we  allow  ourselves  to  be  bullied  by 
the  judge  or  the  clergyman,  when,  if  he  stood  side  by  side 
with  us,  on  the  brick  pavement,  as  a  simple  individual,  his 
ideas  would  not  have  disturbed  our  clear  thoughts  an  hour. 
Now  the  duty  of  each  antislavery  man  is  simply  this,  — 
Stand  on  the  pedestal  of  your  own  individual  independence, 
summon  these  institutions  about  you,  and  judge  them. 
The  question  is  deep  enough  to  require  this  judgment  of 
you.  This  is  what  the  cause  asks  of  you,  my  friends  ;  and 
the  moment  you  shall  be  willing  to  do  this,  to  rely  upon 
yourselves,  that  moment  the  truths  I  have  read  from  the 
lips  of  one  whom  the  country  regards  as  its  greatest  states- 


PUBLIC   OPINION.  47 

man  will  shine  over  your  path,  assuring  you  that  out  of 
this  agitation,  as  sure  as  the  sun  shines  at  noonday,  the  future 
character  of  the  American  government  will  be  formed. 

If  we  lived  in  England,  if  we  lived  in  France,  the  phi 
losophy  of  our  movement  might  be  different,  for  there 
stand  accumulated  wealth,  hungry  churches,  and  old 
nobles,  —  a  class  which  popular  agitation  but  slowly 
affects.  To  these  public  opinion  is  obliged  to  bow.  We 
have  seen,  for  instance,  the  agitation  of  1848  in  Europe, 
deep  as  it  Avas,  seemingly  triumphant  as  it  was  for  six 
months,  retire,  beaten,  before  the  undisturbed  foundations 
of  the  governments  of  the  Continent.  You  recollect,  no 
doubt,  the  tide  of  popular  enthusiasm  which  rolled  from 
the  Bay  of  Biscay  to  the  very  feet  of  the  Czar,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  Europe  was  melted  into  one  republic.  Men 
thought  the  new  generation  had  indeed  come.  We 
waited  twelve  months,  and  "  the  turrets  and  towers  of  old 
institutions  —  the  church,  law,  nobility,  government  — 
reappeared  above  the  subsiding  wave."  Now  there  are  no 
such  institutions  here  ;  —  no  law  that  can  abide  one  moment 
when  popular  opinion  demands  its  abrogation.  The  gov 
ernment  is  wrecked  the  moment  the  newspapers  decree 
it.  The  penny  papers  of  this  State  in  the  Sims  case  did 
more  to  dictate  the  decision  of  Chief  Justice  Shaw,  than 
the  Legislature  that  sat  in  the  State-House,  or  the  statute- 
book  of  Massachusetts.  I  mean  what  I  say.  The  penny 
papers  of  New  York  do  more  to  govern  this  country  than 
the  White  House  at  Washington.  Mr^  Webster  says  we 
Iiv2  \ir.der  a  government  of  Jaws.  ^&e  was  never  more*- 
mistaken,  even  when  he  thought  the  antislavery  agita 
tion  could  be  stopped.  We  live  under  a  government  of 
men  —  and  morning  newspapers.~y[ Applause.]  Bennett 
and  Horace  Greeley  are  more  really  Presidents  of  the 
United  States  than  Millard  Fillmore.  Daniel  Webster 
-iimself  cannot  even  get  a  nomination.  Why  ?  Because, 


48  PUBLIC   OPINION. 

long   ago,  the   ebbing  tide  of  public  opinion  left  him  a 
wreck,  stranded  on  the  side  of  the  popular  current. 

We  live  under  a  government  of  men.  The  Constitu 
tion  is  nothing  in  South  Carolina,  but  the  black  law  is 
everything.  The  law  that  says  the  colored  man  shall  sit 
Jin  the  jury-box  in  the  city  of  Boston  is  nothing.  Why? 
/  Because  the  Mayor  and  Aldermen,  and  the  Selectmen  of 
'  Boston,  for  the  last  fifty  years,  have  been  such  slaves  of 
colorphobia,  that  they  did  not  choose  to  execute  this  law 
of  the  Commonwealth.  I  might  go  through  the  statute- 
book,  and  show  you  the  same  result.  Now  if^this  be 
true  against  us,  it  is  true  for  us.  Remember,  that  the 
penny  papers  may  be  starved  into  antislavery,  whenever 
we  shall  put  behind  them  an  antislavery  public  senti 
ment.  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson  had  to  vanquish  the 
moneyed  power  of  England,  the  West  India  interest,  and 
overawe  the  peerage  of  Great  Britain,  before  they  con 
quered.  The  settled  purpose  of  the  great  middle  class 
had  to  wait  till  all  this  was  accomplished.  The  moment 
we  have  the  control  of  public  opinion,  —  the  women  and 
the  children,  the  school-houses,  the  school-books,  the  litera 
ture,  and  the  newspapers,  —  that  moment  we  have  settled 
the  question. 

Men  blame  us  for  the  bitterness  of  our  language  and  the 
personality  of  our  attacks.  It  results  from  our  position. 
The  great  mass  of  the  people  can  never  be  made  to  stay 
and  argue  a  long  question.  They  must  be  made  to  feel  it, 
through  the  hides  of  their  idols.  When  you  have  launched 
your  spear  into  the  rhinoceros  hide  of  a  Webster  or  a  Ben- 
ton,  every  Whig  and  Democrat  feels  it.  It  is  on  this 
principle  that  every  reform  must  take  for  its  text  the 
mistakes  of  great  men.  God  gives  us  great  scoundrels  for 
texts  to  antislavery  sermons.  See  to  it,  when  Nature 
has  provided  you  a  monster  like  Webster,  that  you  exhibit 
him  —  himself  a  whole  menagerie  —  throughout  the  coun- 


PUBLIC   OPINION.  49 

try.  [Great  cheering.]  It  is  not  often,  in  the  wide  world's 
history,  that  you  see  a  man  so  lavishly  gifted  by  nature, 
and  called,  in  the  concurrence  of  events,  to  a  position  like 
that  which  he1  occupied  on  the  seventh  of  March,  surrender 
his  great  power,  and  quench  the  high  hopes  of  his  race. 
No  man,  since  the  age  of  Luther,  has  ever  held  in  his 
hand,  so  palpably,  the  destinies  and  character  of  a  mighty 
people.  He  stood  like  the  Hebrew  prophet  betwixt  the 
living  and  the  dead.  He  had  but  to  have  upheld  the  cross 
of  common  truth  and  honesty,  and  the  black  dishonor  of 
two  hundred  years  would  have  been  effaced  forever.  He 
bowed  his  vassal  head  to  the  temptations  of  the  flesh  and 
of  lucre.  He  gave  himself  up  into  the  lap  of  the  Delilah 
of  slavery,  for  the  mere  promise  of  a  nomination,  and  the 
greatest  hour  of  the  age  was  bartered  away,  —  not  for  a 
mess  of  pottage,  but  for  the  promise  of  a  mess  of  pottage, 
—  a  promise,  thank  God!  which  is  to  be  broken.  [En 
thusiastic  applause.]  I  say,  it  is  not  often  that  Providence 
permits  the  eyes  of  twenty  millions  of  thinking  people  to 
behold  the  fall  of  another  Lucifer,  from  the  veiy  battle 
ments  of  Heaven,  down  into  that  "  lower  deep  of  the 
lowest  deep"  of  hell.  [Great  sensation.]  On  such  a 
text,  how  effective  should  be  the  sermon ! 

Let  us  see  to  it,  that,  in  spite  of  the  tenderness  of  Amer 
ican  prejudice,  in  spite  of  tha,. jaotbid  cjterity  that  would 
have  us  rebuke  the  sin,  but  spare  the  sinner,  in  spite  of 
t&k.  effeminate  Christianity^liat  would  let  millions  pine, 
lest  one  man's  feelings  be  injured,  —  let  us  see  to  it,  friends, 
that  we  be  "  harsh  as  truth  and  uncompromising  as  jus 
tice  ";  remembering  always,  that  every  single  man  set 
against  this  evil  may  be  another  Moses,  every  single 
thought  you  launch  may  be  the  thunders  of  another  Na 
poleon  from  the  steps  of  another  St.  Roche  ;  remembering 
that  we  live  not  in  an  age  of  individual  despotism,  when  a 
Charles  the  Fifth  could  set  up  or  put  down  the  slave-trade, 


60  PUBLIC   OPINION. 

but  surrounded  by  twenty  millions,  whose  opinion  is  om 
nipotent,  —  that  the  hundred  gathered  in  a  New  England 
school-house  may  be  the  hundred  who  shall  teach  the  rising 
men  of  the  other  half  of  the  continent,  and  stereotype  Free 
dom  on  the  banks  of  the  Pacific  ;  remembering  and  wor 
shipping  reverentially  the  great  American  idea  of  the 
omnipotence  of  "  thinking  men,"  of  the  "  sentiment  of 
justice,"  against  which  no  throne  is  potent  enough  to 
stand,  no  Constitution  sacred  enough  to  endure.  Remem 
.ber  this,  when  you  go  to  an  antislavery  gathering  in  a 
school-house,  and  know  that,  weighed  against  its  solemn 
purpose,  its  terrible  resolution,  its  earnest  thought,  Web 
ster  himself,  and  all  huckstering  statesmen,  in  the  opposite 
scale,  shall  kick  the  beam.  Worshipping  the  tongue,  let 
us  be  willing,  at  all  times,  to  be  known  throughout  the 
community  as  the  all-talk  party.  The  age  of  bullets  is 
over.  The  age  of  men  armed  in  mail  is  over.  The  age 
of  thrones  has  gone  by.  The  age  of  statesmen  —  God  be 
praised  !  such  statesmen  —  is  over.  The  age  of  thinking 
men  has  come.  With  the  aid  of  God,  then,  every  man  I 
can  reach  I  will  set  thinking  on  the  subject  of  slavery. 
[Cheers.]  The  age  of  reading  men  has  come.  I  will  try 
to  imbue  every  newspaper  with  Garrisonianism.  [Loud 
applause.]  The  age  of  the  masses  has  come.  Now, 
Daniel  Webster  counts  one.  Give  him  joy  of  it!  —  but 
the  "  rub-a-dub  agitation  "  counts  at  least  twenty,  —  nine 
teen  better.  Nineteen,  whom  no  chance  of  nomination 
tempts  to  a  change  of  opinions  once  a  twelvemonth ;  who 
need  no  Kossuth  advent  to  recall  them  to  their  senses. 

What  I  want  to  impress  you  with  is,  the  great  weight 
that  is  attached  to  the  opinion  of  everything  that  can  call 
itself  a  man.  Give  me  anything  that  walks  erect,  and  can 
read,  and  he  shall  count  one  in  the  millions  of  the  Lord's 
sacramental  host,  which  is  yet  to  come  up  and  trample  all 
oppression  in  the  dust.  The  weeds  poured  forth  in  na- 


PUBLIC   OPINION.  51 

hire's  lavish  luxuriance,  give  them  but  time,  and  their  tiny 
roots  shall  rend  asunder  the  foundations  of  palaces,  and 
crumble  the  Pyramids  to  the  earth.  We  may  be  weeds 
in  comparison  with  these  marked  men  ;  but  in  the  lavish 
luxuriance  of  that  nature  which  has  at  least  allowed  us  to 
be  "  thinking,  reading  men,"  I  learn,  Webster  being  my 
witness,  that  there  is  no  throne  potent  enough  to  stand 
against  us.  It  is  morbid  enthusiasm  this  that  I  have. 
Grant  it.  But  they  tell  us  that  this  heart  of  mine,  which 
beats  so  unintermittedly  in  the  bosom,  if  its  force  could  be 
directed  against  a  granite  pillar,  would  wear  it  to  dust  in 
the  course  of  a  man's  life.  Zour  Capitol,  Daniel  Webster, 
is  marble,, but  the  pulse  of  every  humane  man  is  beating 
against  it.  God  will  give  us  time,  and  the  pulses  of  men 
shall  beat  it  down.  [Loud  and  enthusiastic  cheering.] 
Take  the  mines,  take  the  Harwich  fishing-skiffs,  take 
the  Lowell  mills,  take  all  the  coin  and  the  cotton,  still 
the  day  must  be  ours,  thank  God,  for  the  hearts  —  the 
hearts  are  on  our  side  ! 

There  is  nothing  stronger  than  human  prejudice.  Ah 
crazy  sentimentalism  like  that  of  Peter  the  Hermit  hurled)  j 
half  of  Europe  upon  Asia,  and  changed  the  destinies  off  i 
kingdoms.  We  may  be  crazy.  Would  to  God  he  would 
make  us  all  crazy  enough  to  forget  for  one  moment  the 
cold  deductions  of  intellect,  and  let  these  hearts  of  ours 
beat,  beat,  beat,  under  the  promptings  of  a  common  hu 
manity  !  They  have  put  wickedness  into  the  statute-book, 
and  its  destruction  is  just  as  certain  as  if  they  had  put 
gunpowder  under  the  Capitol.  That  is  my  faith.  That 
it  is  which  turns  my  eye  from  the  ten  thousand  news 
papers,  from  the  forty  thousand  pulpits,  from  the  millions 
of  Whigs,  from  the  millions  of  Democrats,  from  the  might 
of  sect,  from  the  marble  government,  from  the  iron  army, 
from  the  navy  riding  at  anchor,  from  all  that  we  are  accus 
tomed  to  deem  great  and  potent,  —  turns  it  back  to  the 
simplest  child  or  woman,  to  the  first  murmured  protest 


52  PUBLIC    OPINION. 

that  is  heard  against  bad  laws.  I  recognize  in  it  the  great 
future,  the  first  rumblings  of  that  volcano  destined  to  over 
throw  these  mighty  preparations,  and  bury  in  the  hot  lava 
of  its  full  excitement  all  this  laughing  prosperity  which  now 
rests  so  secure  on  its  side. 

All  hail,  Public  Opinion  !  To  be  sure,  it  is  a  dangerous 
thing  under  which  to  live.  It  rules  to-day  in  the  desire  to 
obey  all  kinds  of  laws,  and  takes  your  life.  It  rules  again 
in  the  love  of  liberty,  and  rescues  Shadrach  from  Boston 
Court-House.  It  rules  to-morrow  in  the  manhood  of  him 
who  loads  the  musket  to  shoot  down  —  God  be  praised  !  — 
the  man-hunter,  Gorsuch.  [Applause.]  It  rules  in  Syra 
cuse,  and  the  slave  escapes  to  Canada.  It  is  our  interest 
to  educate  this  people  in  humanity,  and  in  deep  reverence 
-  for  the  rights  of  the  lowest  and  humblest  individual  that 
makes  up  our  numbers.  Each  man  here,  in  fact,  holds  his 
roperty  and  his  life  dependent  on  the  cnn  stout  presence^ 
of  an  agitation  like  this  of  antislavery.]^  Eternal  vigi 
lance  is  the  price  j>f  liberty :  power  is  ever  stealing  from 
the  many  to  the  few.  )  The  manna  of  popular  liberty  must" 
be  gathered  each  day,  or  it  is  rotten.  The  living  sap  oF~~ 
to-day  outgrows  the  dead  rind  of  yesterday .\  TJieJhand 
intrusted  with  power  becomes,  either  from  human  deprav^ 
ity  or  esprit  de  corps,  the  necessary  enemy  of  the  peo 
Only  by  continual  oversight  can  the  democrat  in  office  De 
prevented  from  hardening  into  a  despot  qpfcjy  by  uninter- 
mitted  agitation  can  a  people  be  kept  sufficiently  awake 
to  principle  not  to  let  liberty  be  smothered  in  material 
prosperityT\  All  clouds,  it  is  said,  have  sunshine  behind 
x^them,  ancTail  evils  have  some  good  result ;  so  slavery,  by 
the  necessity  of  its  abolition,  has  saved  the  freedom  of  the 
white  race  from  being  melted  in  the  luxury  or  buried  be 
neath  the  gold  of  its  own  success.  Never  look,  therefore, 
for  an  age  when  the  people  can  be  quiet  and  safe.  J:Lt 
sudi _times  JDespptisnij  like. a  shrouding  mist,  steals  over 
the  mirror  of  Freedom.  The  Dutch,  a  thousand  years 


PUBLIC   OPINION.  53 

ago,  built  against  the  ocean  their  bulwarks  of  willow  and 
mud.  Do  they  trust  to  that  ?  No.  Each  year  the  patient, 
industrious  peasant  gives  so  much  time  from  the  cultivation 
of  his  soil  and  the  care  of  his  children  to  stop  the  breaks 
and  replace  the  willow  which  insects  have  eaten,  that  he 
may  keep  the  land  his  fathers  rescued  from  the  water,  and 
bid  defiance  to  the  waves  that  roar  above  his  head,  as  if 
demanding  back  the  broad  fields  man  has  stolen  from  their 
realm. 

Some  men  suppose  that,  in  order  to  the  people's  govern 
ing  themselves,  it  is  only  necessary,  as  Fisher  Ames  said, 
that  the  "  Rights  of  Man  be  printed,  and  that  every  citizen 
have  a  copy."  As  the  Epicureans,  two  thousand  years 
ago,  imagined  God  a  being  who  arranged  this  marvellous 
machinery,  set  i.t  going,  and  then  sunk  to  sleep.  Republics 
exist  only  on  the  tenure  of  being  constantly  agitated,  ^he 
antislavery  agitation  is  an  important,  nay,  an  essential 
part  of  the  machinery  of  the  state.  It  is  not  a  disease 
nor  a  medicine.  No  ;^jt  is  the  normal  state,  —  the  normal 
state  of  the  nation^  /Never,  to  our  latest  posterity,  can  we 
afford  to  do  without  prophets,  like  Garrison,  to  stir  up  the 
monotony  of  wealth,  and  reawake  the  people  to  the  great 
ideas  that  are  constantly  fading  out  of  their  minds,  —  to 
trouble  the  waters,  that  there  may  be  liealth  in  their  flow.J 
Every  government  is  always  growing  corrupt.  Every 
Secretary  of  State  is,  by  the  j^ery  necessity  bfhis^position, 
an  apostate.  """  [Hisses  and  cheers.]  I  mean  what  I  say. 
He  is  an  enemy  to  the  people,  of  necessity,  because  the 
moment  he  joins  the  government,  he  gravitates  against 
that  popular  agitation  which  is  the  life  of  a  republic.  A 
republic  is  nothing  but  a  constant  overflow  of  lava.  The 
principles  of  Jefferson  are  not  up  to  the  principles  of  to 
day.  It  was  well  said  of  Webster,  that  he  knows  well 
the  Hancock  and  Adams  of  1776,  but  he  does  not  know 
the  Hancocks  and  Adamses  of  to-day.  {^The  rePu^uc  wmcn 
sinks  to  sleep,  trusting  to  constitutions  and  machinery,  to 


54  PUBLIC   OPINION. 

politicians  and  statesmen,  for  the  safety  of  its  liberties,  never 
^will  have  any.  The  people  are  to  be  waked  to  a  new 
effort,  just  as  the  Church  has  to  be  regenerated,  in  each 
age.  The  antislavery  agitation  is  a  necessity  of  each  age, 
to  keep  ever  on  the  alert  this  faithful  vigilance,  so  con 
stantly  in  danger  of  sleep.  \  We  must  live  like  our  Pu 
ritan  fathers,  who  always  went  to  church,  and  sat  down 
to  dinner,  when  the  Indians  were  in  their  neighborhood, 
with  their  musket-lock  on  the  one  side  and  a  drawn  sword 
on  the  other. 

If  I  had  time  or  voice  to-night,  I  might  proceed  to  a 
further  development  of  this  idea,  and  I  trust  I  could  make 
it  clear,  which  I  fear  I  have  not  yet  done.  f_To  my  con 
viction,  it  is  Gospel  truth,  that,  instead  of  trie  antislavery 
agitation  being  an  evil,  or  even  the  unwelcome  cure  of  a 
disease  in  this  government,  the  youngest  child  that  lives 
may  lay  his  hand  on  the  youngest  child  that  his  gray  hairs 
shall  see,  and  say :  "  The  agitation  was  commenced 
when  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  signed^  it 
took  its  second  tide  when  the  Antislavery  Declaration 
was  signed  in  1833,  —  a  movement,  not  the  cure,  but  the 
diet  of  a  free  people,4-not  the  homoeopathic  or  the  allo 
pathic  dose  to  whicn  a  sick  land  has  recourse,  but  the 
daily  cold  water  and  the  simple  bread,  the  daily  diet 
and  absolute  necessity,  the  manna  of  a  people  wander 
ing  in  the  wilderness."  There  is  no  Canaan  in  politics. 
As  health  lies  in  labor,  and  there  is  no  royal  road  to  it  but 
through  toil,  so  there  is  no  republican  road  to  safety  but 
in  constant  distrust.  "  In  distrust,"  said  Demosthenes, 
"  are  the  nerves  of  the  mind."  Let  us  see  to  it  that  these 
sentinel  nerves  are  ever  on  the  alert.  If  the  Alps,  piled 
:  in  cold  and  still  sublimity,  be  the  emblem  of  Despotism, 
the  ever-restless  ocean  is  ours,  which,  girt  within  the 
eternal  laws  of  gravitation,  is  pure  only  because  never 
still.  [Long-continued  applause.] 


SURRENDER  OF  SIMS.* 


MR.  PRESIDENT  :  I  do  not  feel  disposed  to  talk 
about  Colonization  to-night,  and  I  am  glad  to  think 
that,  after  the  remarks  already  submitted  to  us,  it  is  un 
necessary  anything  more  should  be  said  on  that  topic.  I 
mean,  the  colonization  of  black  men  to  Africa.  I  have 
been  colonized  myself  from  this  hall  for  some  time  ;  and 
in  getting  here  again,  I  prefer  to  go  back  to  the  old  note, 
and  try  to  get  the  "  hang  of  this  school-house."  [Laugh 
ter.]  You  know  Baron  Munchausen  says,  in  one  of  his 
marvellous  stories,  that  it  was  so  cold  one  day  in  Russia, 
when  he  began  to  play  a  tune  on  his  trumpet,  that  half  of 
it  froze  in  the  instrument  before  it  could  get  out ;  and  a 
few  months  afterwards,  he  was  startled,  in  Italy,  to  hear, 
of  a  sudden,  the  rest  of  the  tune  come  pealing  forth.  We 
were  somewhat  frozen  up  a  while  ago  in  this  hall,  with 
George  Thompson  on  the  platform  ;  now  we  want  the 
rest  of  the  tune.  [Laughter  and  cheers.] 

The  Mail  of  this  morning  says  that  we  have  no  right 
to  this  hall,  because  it  was  refused  to  the  greatest  states 
man  in  the  land,  —  to  Daniel  Webster.  I  believe  this  is 
a  mistake.  The  Mayor  and  Aldermen  went  to  him,  meta 
phorically,  on  their  knees,  and  entreated  the  great  man  to 
make  use  of  the  old  walls.  It  was  the  first  time  Faneuil 

*  Speech  before  the  Massachusetts  Antislavery  Society,  at  Faneuil  Hail 
Friday  evening,  January  30,  1852. 


56  SUERENDEK   OF   SIMS. 

Hall  ever  begged  anybody  to  enter  it ;  but  Daniel  was 
pettish,  and  would  not  come.  Very  proper  in  him,  too  ; 
it  is  not  the  place  in  which  to  defend  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Bill.  He  did  right  when  he  refused  to  come.  Who 
built  these  walls  ?  Peter  Faneuil's  ancestors  were  them 
selves  fugitives  from  an  edict  almost  as  cruel  as  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  ;  and  only  he  whose  soul  and  body 
refuse  to  crouch  beneath  inhuman  legislation  has  a  right 
to  be  heard  here,  —  nobody  else.  [Cheers.]  A  Hugue 
not  built  this  hall,  who  was  not  permitted  to  live  on  the 
soil  of  his  own  beautiful  France,  and  it  may  naturally  be 
supposed  that  he  dedicated  it  to  the  most  ultra,  outside 
idea  of  liberty.  It  is  a  place  for  the  running  slave  to  find 
a  shelter,  —  not  for  a  recreant  statesman.  [Deafening 
cheers.] 

This  hall  has  never  been  made  ridiculous  but  once  ; 
never  was  made  the  laughing-stock  of  New  England  but 
once.  That  was  about  nine  months  ago,  when  the  "  Sims 
brigade  "  were  left  soundly  asleep  here,  in  the  gray  of  the 
morning,  while  the  awkward  squad  of  Marshal  Tukey 
stole  down  State  Street  with  Thomas  Sims,  not  deigning 
to  ask  their  permission  or  their  aid,  and  leaving  them  to 
find  out,  the  next  morning,  that  the  great  deed  had  been 
done,  without  their  so  much  as  "  hearing  a  noise."  Sol 
diers  asleep  in  Faneuil  Hall,  while  mischief  was  doing  so 
near  as  State  Street  ?  O  what  gallant  soldiers  they  must 
have  been  !  [Loud  laughter  and  cheers.] 

Times  have  changed  since  we  were  here  before.  The 
last  time  I  stood  on  this  platform,  there  sat  beside  me  a 
heroine  worthy  to  sit  in  the  hall  of  the  old  Huguenot,  — 
one  Elizabeth  Blakeley,  a  mulatto  girl,  of  Wilmington, 
N.  C.,  who,  loving  freedom  more  than  slavery,  concealed 
herself  on  board  a  Boston  brig,  in  the  little  narrow  pas 
sage  between  the  side  of  the  vessel  and  the  partition  that 
formed  the  cabin,  —  two  feet  eight  inches  of  room.  There 


SURRENDER  OF  SIMS.  57 

she  lay  while  her  inhuman  master,  almost  certain  she  was 
on  board  the  vessel,  had  it  smoked  with  sulphur  and 
tobacco  three  times  over.  Still  she  bore  it.  She  came 
North,  half  frozen,  in  the  most  inclement  month  of  the 
year,  —  this  month.  She  reached  Boston  just  able  to 
crawl.  Where  did  she  come  ?  O  those  were  better 
times  then  !  She  came  here.  Just  able  to  stand,  fresh 
from  that  baptism  of  suffering  for  liberty  >  she  came  here. 
We  told  her  story.  And  with  us  that  night  —  within 
ten  feet  of  where  I  stand  —  sat  Fredrika  Bremer,  the 
representative  of  the  literature  of  the  Old  World ;  and  her 
humane  sympathies  were  moved  so  much,  that  the  rose 
bud  she  held  in  her  hand  she  sent  (honoring  me  by 
sending  it  by  my  hand)  to  the  first  representative  of 
American  slavery  she  had  seen.  It  was  the  tribute  of 
Europe's  heart  and  intellect  to  a  heroine  of  the  black  race, 
in  Faneuil  Hall.  Times  have  changed  since.  Not  to 
speak  of  the  incense  which  Miss  Bremer  has,  half  igno- 
rantly,  I  hope,  laid  on  the  demon  altar  of  our  land,  it  would 
not  be  safe  to  put  that  Betsey  Blakeley  on  this  platform 
to-night ;  it  would  not  be  safe  for  her  to  appear  in  a  public 
meeting.  What  has  changed  this  public  opinion  ?  I  wish 
it  was  some  single  man.  I  wish  it  was  some  official  of  the 
city,  that  so  we  could  make  him  the  scapegoat  of  public 
indignation,  let  him  carry  it  forth,  and  thus  the  fair  fame 
of  our  city  be  freed.  This,  Mr.  President,  brings  me  to 
my  subject.  The  resolutions  I  wish  to  speak  to  are  these. 
I  think  they  ought  to  be  read  in  Faneuil  Hall,  at  this,  the 
first  meeting  the  Abolitionists  have  held  here  since  the 
foul  deed  of  April  12th  disgraced  the  city.  I  feel  that 
these  peddling  hucksters  of  State  and  Milk  Streets  owe 
me  full  atonement  for  the  foul  dishonor  tlrey  have  brought 
upon  the  city  of  my  birth. 

"  Resolved,  That,  as  citizens  of  Boston  and  the  Commonwealth, 
we  record  our  deep  disapprobation  and  indignant  protest  against 


58  SURRENDER   OF   SIMS. 

the  surrender  of  Thomas  Sims  by  the  city,  its  sanction  of  the 
cowardly  and  lying  policy  of  the  police,  its  servile  and  volunteer 
zeal  in  behalf  of  the  man-hunters,  and  its  deliberate,  wanton,  and 
avowed  violation  of  the  laws  of  the  Commonwealth,  for  the 
basest  of  all  purposes,  —  slave-trading,  selling  a  free  man  into 
bondage,  that  State  Street  and  Milk  Street  might  make  money." 

Next  we  come  to  that  man  [John  P.  Bigelow]  who 
stood  at  yonder  door,  looking  on,  while  George  Thompson 
was  mobbed  from  this  platform ;  who,  neither  an  honorable 
Mayor  nor  a  gentleman,  broke  at  once  his  oath  of  office  and 
bis  promise  as  a  gentleman  to  give  us  this  hall  for  certain 
eighty  dollars  to  be  paid  him,  and  when  he  had  stood  by 
and  seen  us  mobbed  out  of  it,  thought  be  mended  bis 
character  by  confessing  bis  guilt,  in  not  daring  to  send  in 
a  bill ! 

"  Resolved,  That  the  circumstances  of  the  case  will  not  allow  us 
to  believe  that  this  infamous  deed  was  the  act  of  the  City  Gov 
ernment  only  ;  and  then,  as  Boston-born  men,  some  of  us,  com 
forting  ourselves  in  the  reflection  that  the  fawning  sycophant 
who  disgraced  the  Mayor's  chair  was  not  born  on  the  peninsula 
whose  fair  fame  he  blotted ;  but  all  the  facts  go  to  show,  that  in 
this,  as  in  all  his  life,  he  was  only  the  easy  and  shuffling  tool  of 
the  moneyed  classes,  and  therefore  too  insignificant  to  be  remem 
bered  with  any  higher  feeling  than  contempt. 

"  Resolved,  That  we  cherish  a  deep  and  stern  indignation 
towards  the  judges  of  the  Commonwealth,  who,  in  personal 
cowardice,  pitiful  subserviency,  utter  lack  of  official  dignity,  and 
entire  disregard  of  their  official  oaths,  witnessed  in  'silence  the 
violation  of  laws  they  were  bound  to  enforce,  and  disgraced  the 
Bench  once  honored  by  the  presence  of  a  Sedgwick  and  a 
Sewall." 

I  do  not  forget  that  the  Church,  all  the  while  this 
melancholy  scene  was  passing,  stood  by  and  upheld  a 
merciless  people  in  the  execution  of  an  inhuman  law, 
accepted  the  barbarity,  and  baptized  it  "Christian  duty.' 


SURRENDER   OF   SIMS.  59 

O  no,  I  do  not  forget  this  !  But  I  remember  that,  in  an 
enterprising,  trading  city  like  ours,  the  merchants  are  full 
as  much,  if  not  more,  responsible  for  the  state  of  public 
opinion,  than  the  second-rate  men  who  rather  occupy 
than  fill  our  pulpits,  and  who  certainly  seldom  tempt  the 
brains  of  their  hearers  to  violate  the  command  of  the 
Jewish  Scriptures,  "  Thou  shalt  not  do  any  work  on  the 
Sabbath  day." 

Do  you  ask  why  the  Abolitionists  denounce  the  traders 
of  Boston  ?  It  is  because  the  merchants  chose  to  send 
back  Thomas  Sims,  —  pledged  their  individual  aid  to 
Marshal  Tukey,  in  case  there  should  be  any  resistance  ; 
it  is  because  the  merchants  did  it  to  make  money.  Thank 
God,  they  have  not  made  any !  [Great  cheering.]  Like 
the  negro  who  went  to  hear  Whitefield,  and  rolled  in  the 
dust  in  the  enthusiasm  of  his  religious  excitement,  until 
they  told  him  it  was  not  Whitefield,  when  he  picked  him 
self  up,  crying  out,  "  Then  I  dirty  myself  for  nothing," 
so  they  dirtied  themselves  for  nothing !  [Tremendous 
cheering.]  If  only  slave-hunting  can  save  them,  may 
bankruptcy  sit  on  the  ledger  of  every  one  of  those  fifteen 
hundred  scoundrels  who  offered  Marshal  Tukey  their  aid  ! 
[Tumultuous  applause.] 

There  is  one  thing  to  be  rejoiced  at,  —  it  is  this  :  the 
fact  that  the  police  of  this  city  did  not  dare  even  to  arrest 
a  fugitive  slave,  calling  him  such.  The  dogs  of  Marshal 
Tukey  that  arrested  Thomas  Sims  in  Richmond  Street 
had  to  disguise  themselves  to  do  it,  —  dressed  in  the 
costume  and  called  themselves  watchmen  ;  and  told  a  lie, 
—  that  the  arrest  was  for  theft,  —  in  order  to  keep  peace 
in  the  street,  while  they  smuggled  him  into  a  carriage. 
Claim,  for  the  honor  of  Boston,  that,  when  her  police 
became  man-hunters,  they  put  their  badges  in  their  pockets, 
and  lied,  lest  their  prey  should  be  torn  from  their  grasp, 
in  the  first  burst  of  popular  indignation.  It  was  the  first 


60  SURRENDER   OF   SIMS. 

time  in  Boston  —  I  hope  it  will  be  the  last  —  that  the  laws 
were  obliged  to  be  executed  by  lying  and  behind  bayonets, 
in  the  night.  So  much,  though  it  be  very  Jittle,  may  still 
be  said  for  Boston,  —  that  Sims  was  arrested  by  lying  and 
disguised  policemen ;  he  was  judged  by  a  Commissioner 
who  sat  behind  bayonets ;  and  was  carried  off  in  the  gray 
of  the  morning,  after  the  moon  set,  and  before  the  sun 
rose,  by  a  police  body  armed  with  swords.  She  was  dis 
graced,  but  it  was  by  force  ;  while,  the  reverse  of  the 
Roman  rule,  cedant  anna  togce,  the  robe  gave  way  to  the 
sword.  The  law  was  executed  ;  but  it  was  behind  bayo 
nets.  Such  laws  do  not  last  long.  [Loud  cheers.] 
Courts  that  sit  behind  chains  seldom  sit  more  than  once 
[Renewed  cheering.] 

[A  Voice  :    "  The  Whigs  defend  it."] 

O,  I  know  that  Mr.  Choate  has  been  here,  —  I  heard 
him,  and  before  a  Whig  caucus,  defend  the  policy  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Bill.  He  told  us,  while  I  sat  in  yonder 
gallery,  of  the  "infamous  ethics," — the  " infamous  ethics, 
that  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  Ser 
mon  on  the  Mount  deduced  the  duty  of  immediate  eman 
cipation."  The  sentiment  was  received,  I  am  thankful  to 
say,  with  a  solemn  silence,  though  Rufus  Choate  uttered  it 
to  an  assembly  of  Webster  Whigs.  I  heard  it  said  to-day, 
that  the  Abolitionists  had  done  nothing,  because  a  fugitive, 
within  the  last  twelve  months,  had  been  taken  out  of 
Boston.  They  have  done  a  great  deal  since,  sixteen  or 
seventeen  years  ago,  Peleg  Sprague,  standing  on  this 
platform,  pointed  to  this  portrait,  [the  portrait  of  Wash 
ington,]  and  called  him  "  that  slaveholder."  It  is  not 
now  considered  a  merit  in  Washington  that  he  held 
slaves ;  men  apologize  for  it  now.  I  stood  in  this  hall, 
sixteen  years  ago,  when  "  Abolitionist  "  was  linked  with 
epithets  of  contempt,  in  the  silver  tones  of  Otis,  and  all 
the  charms  that  a  divine  eloquence  and  most  felicitous 


SURRENDER   OF  SIMS.  61 

diction  could  throw  around  a  bad  cause  were  given  it ; 
the  excited  multitude  seemed  actually  ready  to  leap  up 
beneath  the  magic  of  his  speech.  It  would  be  something, 
if  one  must  die,  to  die  by  such  a  hand,  —  a  hand  somewhat 
worthy  and  able  to  stifle  antislavery,  if  it  could  be  stifled. 
The  orator  was  worthy  of  the  gigantic  task  he  attempted  ; 
and  thousands  crowded  before  him,  every  one  of  their 
hearts  melted  by  that  eloquence,  beneath  which  Massa 
chusetts  had  bowed,  not  unworthily,  for  more  than  thirty 
years.  I  came  here  again  last  fall,  —  the  first  time  I  had 
been  here,  in  a  Whig  meeting,  since  listening  to  Otis.  I 
found  Rufus  Choate  on  the  platform.  Compared  with  the 
calm  grace  and  dignity  of  Otis,  the  thought  of  which  came 
rushing  back,  he  struck  me  like  a  monkey  in  convulsions. 
[Roars  of  laughter  and  cheers.]  Alas  !  I  said,  if  the  party 
which  has  owned  Massachusetts  so  long,  which  spoke  to 
me,  as  a  boy,  through  the  lips  of  Quincy  and  Sullivan,  of 
Webster  and  Otis,  has  sunk  down  to  the  miserable  sophis 
try  of  this  mountebank  !  —  and  I  felt  proud  of  the  city  of 
my  birth,  as  I  looked  over  the  murmuring  multitude  be 
neath  me,  on  whom  his  spasmodic  chatter  fell  like  a  wet 
blanket.  [Great  laughter  and  cheering.]  He  did  not  dare 
to  touch  a  second  time  on  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill.  He 
tried  it  once,  with  his  doctrine  of  "  infamous  ethics,"  and 
the  men  were  as  silent  as  the  pillars  around  them.  Ah  ! 
thought  I,  ive  have  been  here  a  little  too  often ;  and  if  we 
have  not  impressed  the  seal  of  our  sentiments  very  deeply 
on  the  people,  they  have  at  least  learned  that  immediate 
emancipation,  though  possibly  it  be  a  dream,  is  not  "  in 
famous  ethics  "  ;  and  that  such  doctrine,  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  need 
more  than  the  flashy  rhetoric  of  a  Webster  retainer  to 
tear  them  asunder.  [Great  cheering.] 

The  judges  of  the  Commonwealth,  —  the  judges  of  the 
Commonwealth, — I  have  something  to  say  of  them.     J 


62  SURRENDER    OF    SIMS. 

wish  sometimes  we  liAred  in  England,  and  I  will  tell  you 
why.  Because  John  Bull  has  some  degree  of  self-respect 
left.  There  is  an  innate,  dogged  obstinacy  in  him,  that 
would  never  permit  the  successors  of  a  Hale,  a  Buller,  a 
Mansfield,  or  a  Brougham,  to  stoop  beneath  any  chain  that 
a  city  constable  could  put  round  Westminster  Hall.  I 
was  once  a  member  of  the  profession  myself,  but  glad  I  am 
so  no  longer,  since  the  head  of  it  has  bowed  his  burly  per 
son  to  Francis  Tukey's  chain.  [Cheers.]  Did  he  not 
know  that  he  was  making  history  that  hour,  when  the 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Commonwealth  entered  his  own 
court,  bowing  down  like  a  criminal  beneath  a  chain  four 
feet  from  the  soil  ?  Did  he  not  recollect  he  was  the 
author  of  that  decision  which  shall  be  remembered  when 
every  other  case  in  Pickering's  Reports  is  lost,  declaring 
the  slave  Med  a  free  woman  the  moment  she  set  foot  on 
the  soil  of  Massachusetts,  and  that  he  owed  more  respect 
to  himself  and  his  own  fame  than  to  disgrace  the  ermine 
by  passing  beneath  a  chain  ?  There  is  something  in  em 
blems.  There  is  something,  on  great  occasions,  even  in 
the  attitude  of  a  man.  Chief  Justice  Shaw  betrayed  the 
bench  and  the  courts  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  the 
honor  of  a  noble  profession,  when  for  any  purpose,  still 
more  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  George  T.  Curtis  to  act 
his  melancholy  farce  in  peace,  he  crept  under  a  chain  into 
his  own  court- room.  And,  besides,  what  a  wanton  and 
gratuitous  insult  it  was  !  What  danger  was  there,  with 
two  hundred  men  inside  the  court-house,  and  three  hun 
dred  men  around  it  on  the  sidewalk  ?  Near  five  hundred 
sworn  policemen  in  and  around  that  building,  —  what  need 
for  any  chain  ?  It  was  put  there  in  wanton  insult  to  the 
feelings  of  the  citizens  of  Boston,- — nothing  else;  in  wan 
ton  servility  to  the  Slave  Power,  —  nothing  else  ;  in  wanton 
flattery  to  Daniel  Webster.  Yes,  it  was  the  gratuitousness 
of  the  insult  that  makes  it  all  the  more  unbearable  !  And 


SURRENDER  OF   SIMS.  68 

the  "  old  chief,"  as  we  loved  to  call  him,  made  himself,  in 
timid  servility,  party  to  the  insult  and  the  degradation. 
How  truly  American  !  Ah,  our  slave  system  by  no  means 
exists  only  on  Southern  plantations  ! 

We  are  said  to  be  unreasonable  in  this  manner  of  criti 
cising  the  institutions,  laws,  and  men  of  our  country.  It 
is  thought  that,  as  little  men,  we  are  bound  to  tune  our 
voices  and  bow  our  heads  to  the  great  intellects,  as  they 
are  called,  of  the  land,  —  Mr.  Webster  and  others.  He 
tells  us,  that  there  are  certain  important  interests  con 
cerned  in  this  question,  which  we  are  bound  to  regard, 
and  not  abstract  theories  about  the  equality  of  men,  and 
the  freedom  of  humble  individuals.  Well,  all  I  say  to 
that  is,  when  dollats  are  -to  he  discussed,  let  him  discuss 
them  with  Franklin  Haven,  in  the  directors'  room  of  the 
Merchants'  Bank.  Let  him  discuss  them  over  ihc  bursting 
ledgers  of  Milk  Street,  —  that  is  the  place  for  dollar  talk.. 
But  there  is  no  room  for  dollars  in  Faneuil  Hall.  The 
idea  of  liberty  is  the  great  fundamental  principle  of  this 
spot,  —  that  a  man  is  worth  more  than  a  bank- vault. 
[Loud  cheers.]  J~- 

I  know  Mr.  Webster  has,  on  various  occasions,  intimated 
that  this  is  not  statesmanship  in  the  United  States ;  that 
the  cotton-mills  of  Lowell,  the  schooners  of  Cape  Cod,  the 
coasters  of  Marblehead,  the  coal  and  iron  mines  of  Penn 
sylvania,  and  the  business  of  Wall  Street  are  the  great' 
interests  which  this  government  is  framed  to  protect.  He 
intimated,  all  through  the  recent  discussion,  that  property 
is  the  great  element  this  government  is  to  stand  by  and 
protect,  —  the  test  by  which  its  success  is  to  be  appreci 
ated.  Perhaps  it  is  so ;  perhaps  it  is  so ;  and  if  the  mak 
ing  of  money,  if  ten  per  cent  a  year,  if  the  placing  of  one 
dollar  on  the  top  of  another,  be  the  highest  effort  of  human 
skill ;  if  the  answer  to  the  old  Puritan  catechism,  "  What 
is  the  chief  end  of  man?  "  is  to  be  changed,  as,  according 


64  SURRENDER   OF   SIMS. 

to  modern  state  craft  it  ought  to  be,  why,  be  it  so. 
Nicholas  of  Russia  made  a  catechism  for  the  Poles,  in 
which  they  are  taught  that  Christ  is  next  below  God,  and 
the  Emperor  of  all  the  Russias  is  next  below  Christ.  So, 
judging  by  the  tenor  of  his  recent  speeches,  Daniel  has  got 
a  new  catechism,  "  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ?  "  The 
old  one  of  the  Westminster  divines,  of  Selden  and  Hugli 
Peters,  of  Cotton  and  the  Mathers,  used  to  answer,  "  To 
glorify  God  and  enjoy  him  forever  "  ;  that  is  Kane-treason, 
now.  The  "  chief  end  of  man  "  ?  —  why,  it  is  to  save  the 
Union  ! 

A  VOICE.  —  "  Three  cheers  for  the  Union  !  " 
MR.  PHILLIPS.  —  Feeble  cheers  those  !  —  [Great  ap 
plause] —  and  a  very  thankless  "omce^It  -i»  to  defend  the 
Union  on  thaj.  lay.  ^Oid  you  ever  read  the  fable  of  the 
wolf  and  tktMiouse-dog  ?  The  one  was  fat,  the  other  gaunt 
and'  famine-struck.  The  wolf  said  to  the  dog,  "  You  are 
very  fat."  "  Yes,"  replied  the  dog,  "  I  get  along  very 
well  at  home."  "  Well,"  said  the  wolf,  "  could  you  take 
me  home  ?  "  "  O,  certainly."  So  they  trotted  along 
together ;  but  as  they  neared  the  house,  the  wolf  caught 
sight  of  several  ugly  scars  on  the  neck  of  the  dog,  and, 
stopping,  cried,  "  Where  did  you  get  those  scars  on  your 
neck?  they  look  very  sore  and  bloody."  "  O,"  said  the 
dog,  "  they  tie  me  up  at  night,  and  I  have  rather  an  incon 
venient  iron  collar  on  my  neck.  But  that 's  a  small  matter ; 
they  feed  me  well."  "  On  the  whole,"  said  the  Avolf,  "  tak 
ing  the  food  and  the  collar  together,  I  prefer  to  remain  in 
the  woods."  Now,  if  I  am  allowed  to  choose,  I  do  not 
like  the  collar  of  Daniel  Webster  and  Parson  Dewey,  and 
there  are  certain  ugly  scars  I  see  about  their  necks.  I 
should  not  like,  Dr.  Dewey,  to  promise  to  return  my 
mother  to  slavery ;  and,  Mr.  Webster,  I  prefer  to  be 
lean  and  keep  my  "  prejudices,"  to  getting  fat  by  smoth 
ering  them.  I  do  not  like  your  idea  of  the  Yankee  char- 


THE 


SURRENDER   OF  SIMS. 

acter,  which  seems  to  be  too  near  that  of  the  Scotchman. 
of  whom  Dr.  Johnson  said,  that,  if  he  saw  a  dollar  on  the 
other  side  of  hell,  he  would  make  a  spring  for  it  at  the 
risk  of  falling  in.  [Laughter.]  Under  correction  of  these 
great  statesmen  and  divines,  I  cannot  think  this  the  beau 
ideal  of  human  perfection.  I  do  not  care  whether  the 
schooners  of  Harwich,  under  slaveholding  bunting,  catch 
fish  and  keep  them  or  not ;  I  do  not  care  whether  the  j 
mills  of  Abbott  Lawrence  make  him  worth  two  millions  or 
one,  whether  the  iron  and  coal  mines  of  Pennsylvania  are 
profitable  or  not,  if,  in  order  to  have  them  profitable,  we 
must  go  down  on  our  marrow-bones  and  thank  Daniel 
Webster  for  saving  his  Union,  call  Mayor  Bigelow  an 
honorable  man  and  Mayor,  and  acknowledge  Francis 
Tukey  as  Chief  Justice  of  the  Commonwealth.  I  prefer 
hunger  and  the  woods  to  the  hopeless  task  of  maintaining 
the  sincerity  of  Daniel  Webster,  or  bending  under  the 
chain  of  Francis  Tukey.  [Tremendous  cheering.] 

Sir,  I  have  something  to  say  of  this  old  Commonwealth. 
I  went  up  one  day  into  the  Senate-chamber  of  Massachu 
setts,  in  which  the  Otises,  the  Quincys,  and  the  Adamses, 
Parsons  and  Sedgwick,  Sewall  and  Strong,  have  sat  and 
spoke  in  times  gone  by,  —  in  which  the  noblest  legislation 
in  the  world,  on  many  great  points  of  human  concern,  has 
made  her  the  noblest  State  in  the  world,  —  the  good  old 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  —  and  I  stood  there  to 
see  this  impudent  City  Marshal  tell  the  Senate  of  Massa 
chusetts  that  he  knew  he  was  trampling  on  the  laws  of 
the  Commonwealth,  and  that  he  intended  to  do  so,  as 
Mayors  told  him  to !  And  there  was  not  spirit  enough 
in  the  Free  Soil  party,  —  no,  nor  in  the  Democratic 
party,  —  there  was  not  self-respect  enough  in  the  very 
Senators  who  were  sworn  to  maintain  these  laws,  to  de 
fend  them  against  this  insolent  boast  of  a  city  constable. 
Now,  fellow-citizens,  you  may,  and  probably  do,  think 

5 


66  SURRENDER   OF  SIMS. 

me  a  fanatic ;  till  you  judge  men  and  things  on  different 
principles,  I  do  not  care  much  what  you  think  me ;  I 
have  outgrown  that  interesting  anxiety :  but  I  tell  you 
this,  if  I  see  the  Commonwealth  upside  down,  I  mean 
to  keep  my  neck  free  enough  from  collars  to  say  so ;  and 
I  think  it  is  upside  down  when  a  city  constable  dictates 
law  in  the  Senate-chamber  of  Massachusetts.  [Lon.l 
cheers.] 

Mr.  President,  let  me  add  one  thing  more.  For  Francis 
Tukey  I  have  no  epithet  of  contempt  or  of  indignation. 
He  may,  and  does,  for  aught  I  kno.w,  perform  his  duties 
as  City  Marshal  efficiently  and  well.  I  know  he  would, 
had  he  been  present,  have  done  his  duty,  and  his  deputy 
stood  ready  to  do  it  that  night  in  George  Thompson's 
presence,  if  we  had  really  had  a  Mayor,  and  not  a  lackey 
in  the  Mayor's  chair.  [Great  laughter  and  cheering.]  I 
find  little  fault,  comparatively,  with  the  City  Marshal  of 
Boston,  that  he  did  the  infamous  duty  which  the  merchants 
of  Boston  set  him.  The  fault  that  I  rather  choose  to  noto 
is,  that  the  owner  of  the  brig  Acorn  can  walk  up  State 
Street,  and  be  as  honored  a  man  as  he  was  before  ;  that 
John  H.  Pearson  walks  our  streets  as  erect  as  ever,  and 
no  merchant  shrinks  from  his  side.  But  we  will  put  the 
fact  that  he  owned  that  brig,  and  the  infamous  uses  he 
made  of  it,  so  blackly  on  record,  that  his  children  —  yes, 
HIS  CHILDREN  —  will  gladly,  twenty  years  hence,  forego 
all  the  wealth  he  will  leave  them  to  blot  out  that  single 
record.  [Enthusiastic  applause.]  The  time  shall  come 
when  it  will  be  thought  the  unkindest  thing  in  the  world 
for  any  one  to  remind  the  son  of  that  man  that  his  father's 
name  was  John  H.  Pearson,  and  that  he  owned  the  Acorn. 
[Renewed  cheering.] 

[At  this  point  a  voice  called  out,  "  Three  cheers  for  John  H.  Pear 
son."  After  what  had  been  said  from  the  platform,  such  a  call  was 
not  likely  to  be  very  warmly  responded  to  ;  but  one  or  two  voices 
were  raised,  and  Mr.  Phillips  continued.] 


SURRENDER   OF   SIMS.  67 

Yes,  it  is  fitting  that  the  cheer  should  be  a  poor  one, 
when,  in  the  presence  of  that  merchant  [pointing  to  the 
portrait  of  John  Hancock],  of  that  merchant  who  led  the 
noblest  movement  for  civil  liberty  ever  made  on  this  side 
the  ocean,  —  when  in  his  presence  you  attempt  to  cheer 
this  miserable  carrier  of  slaves,  who  calls  himself,  and  alas  ! 
according  to  the  present  average  of  State  Street,  has  a 
right  to  call  himself,  a  Boston  merchant. 

I  want  to  remark  one  other  change,  since  we  were  shut 
out  of  Faneuil  Hall.  It  is  this.  Within  a  few  months,  I 
stood  in  this  hall,  when  Charles  Francis  Adams  was  on 
the  platform;  —  a  noble  representative,  a  worthy  son,  let 
me  say  in  passing,  of  the  two  Adamses  who  hung  here 
above  him.  While  here  he  had  occasion  to  mention  the 
name  of  Daniel  Webster,  as  I  have  once  or  twice  to-night, 
and  it  was  received  with  cheer  on  cheer,  four,  five,  and 
six  times  repeated  during  the  course  of  his  speech.  In  fact, 
he  could  hardly  go  on  for  the  noisy  opposition.  That  was 
at  a  time  when  some  men  were  crazy  enough  to  think  that 
Daniel  would  yet  be  nominated  for  the  Presidency;  but 
those  gaudy  soap-bubbles  have  all  burst.  ["  Three  cheers 
for  Daniel  Webster."]  Yes,  three  cheers  for  Sir  Pertinax 
M'Sycophant,  who  all  his  life  long  has  been  bowing  down 
to  the  Slave  Power  to  secure  the  Presidency ;  willing  to 
sacrifice  his  manhood  for  the  promise  of  a  mess  of  pottage, 
and  destined  to  be  outwitted  at  last.  [Cheers.]  Three 
cheers  for  the  man  who,  after  "  many  great  and  swelling 
words  "  against  Texas,  when  finally  the  question  of  the 
Mexican  war  was  before  the  Senate,  did  not  dare  to  vote, 
but  dodged  the  question,  afraid  to  be  wholly  Southerner 
or  Northerner,  and  striving  in  vain  to  outdo  Winthrop  in 
facing  both  ways.  [Cheers.]  Three  cheers  for  the  man 
who  went  into  Virginia,  and,  under  an  "  October  sun  "  of 
the  Old  Dominion,  pledged  himself — the  recreant  New- 
Englander !  —  to  silence  on  the  slave  question ;  a  pledge 


68  SURRENDER   OF   SIMS. 

infamous  enough  in  itself,  but  whose  infamy  was  doubled 
when  he  broke  it  only  to  speak  against  the  slave  on  the 
7th  of  March,  1850.  Three  cheers  for  him  !  [They  were 
given,  but  so  faintly,  that  a  shout  of  derision  went  up  from 
the  whole  audience.]  Three  cheers  for  the  statesman  who 
said  on  the  steps  of  the  Revere  House  that  "  this  agitation 
must  be  put  down,"  and  the  agitationists  have  entered 
Faneuil  Hall  before  him.  [Great  applause.]  Three 
cheers  for  the  man  who  could  afford  no  better  name  to 
the  Abolitionists  than  "rub-a-dub  agitators,"  till  Kossuth 
found  no  method  but  theirs  to  chain  the  millions  to  him 
self;  and  then  this  far-sighted  statesman  discovered  that 
"  there  were  people  inclined  to  underrate  the  influence  of 
public  opinion."  [Laughter.]  Three  cheers  for  the  man 
who  gave  the  State  a  new  motive  to  send  Horace  Mann 
back  to  Washington,  lest  we  should  be  thought  guilty 
abroad  of  shocking  bad  taste  in  the  old  imperial  tongue 
of  the  Romans.  [Laughter.]  Three  cheers  for  the  man  — 
(O,  I  like  to  repeat  the  Book  of  Daniel !)  —  three  cheers 
for  "  the  Whig,  the  Massachusetts  Whig,  the  Faneuil 
Hall  Whig,"  who  came  home  to  Massachusetts,  • — his  own 
Massachusetts,  the  State  he  thought  he  owned,  body  and 
soul,  —  who  came  home  to  Massachusetts,  and  lobbied  so 
efficiently  as  to  secure  the  election  of  Charles  Sumner  to 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  [Loud  cheers.] 

[A  voice :  "  Three  cheers  for  Charles  Sumner."  Overwhelming 
applause.  "  Three  cheers  for  Webster."  Mr.  Phillips  continued  :  — ] 

Faintly  given,  those  last;  but  I  do  not  much  care, 
Mr.  Chairman,  which  way  the  balance  of  cheers  goes  in 
respect  to  the  gentleman  whose  name  has  just  been 
mentioned  [Mr.  Webster].  It  is  said,  you  know,  that 
when  Washington  stood  before  the  surrendering  army 
of  Cornwallis,  some  of  the  American  troops,  as  Corn- 
wallis  came  forward  to  surrender  his  sword,  began,  in  very 
bad  taste,  to  cheer.  The  noble  Virginian  turned  to  them 


SURRENDER   OF  SIMS.  69 

and  said,  "  Let  posterity  cheer  for  us  " ;  and  they  were 
silent.  Now,  if  Daniel  Webster  has  done  anything  on 
the  subject  of  slavery  which  posterity  will  not  have  the 
kindness  to  forget,  may  he  get  cheers  for  it,  fifty  years 
hence,  and  in  this  hall ;  using  my  Yankee  privilege,  how 
ever,  "I  rather  guess"  some  future  D'Israeli  will  be  able 
to  put  that  down  in  continuation  of  his  grandfather's 
chapter  of  "  events  tha/  never  took  place."  I  much,  I 
very  much  doubt,  whether,  fifty  years  hence,  Massachu 
setts  will  not  choose  men  with  backbones  to  send  to  Wash 
ington  ;  not  men  who  go  there  to  yield  up  to  the  great 
temptations,  social  and  political,  of  the  capital,  the  interests 
and  the  honor  of  Massachusetts  and  New  England.  I  be 
lieve,  no  matter  whether  the  Abolitionists  have  done  much 
or  little,  that  the  average  of  political  independence  has 
risen  within  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years.  I  know  that 
strange  sounds  have  been  heard  from  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives  and  the  Senate  within  the  last  ten  or  fifteen 
years :  that  the  old  tone  so  often  breathed  there  of  North 
ern  submission  has  very  much  changed  since  John  Quincy 
Adams  vindicated  free  speech  on  the  floor  of  that  House. 
I  read  just  now  a  speech  worthy,  in  some  respects,  of 
Faneuil  Hall,  from  the  lips  of  Robert  Rantoul,  in  rebuke 
of  a  recreant  Abolitionist  from  the  banks  of  the  Connecti 
cut  (George  T.  Davis).  I  know  not  what  may  be  the 
future  course  of  Mr.  Rantoul  on  this  question ;  I  know 
not  how  erect  he  may  stand  hereafter ;  but  I  am  willing 
to  give  him  good  credit  in  the  future,  so  well  paid  has 
been  this  his  first  bill  of  exchange.  [Great  cheering.] 
He  has  done,  at  least,  his  duty  to  the  constituency  he 
represented.  He  looked  North  for  his  instructions.  The 
time  has  been  when  no  Massachusetts  representative 
looked  North ;  we  saw  only  their  backs.  They  have 
always  looked  to  the  Southern  Cross  ;  they  never  turned 
their  eyes  to  the  North  Star.  They  never  looked  back  to 


70  SURRENDER    OF    SIMS. 

the  Massachusetts  that  sent  them.  Charles  Allen  and 
Horace  Mann,  no  matter  how  far  they  may  be  from  the 
level  of  what  we  call  antislavery,  show  us  at  least  this 
cheering  sign.  While  speaking,  they  have  turned  their 
faces  toward  Massachusetts.  They  reflect  the  public  opin 
ion  of  the  State  they  represent.  They  look  to  Faneuil 
Hall,  not  to  "  the  October  sun  of  the  Old  Dominion." 
Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  if  we  can  come  to  this  hall,  year 
after  year ;  if  we  can  hold  these  meetings ;  if  we  can 
sustain  any  amount  of  ridicule  for  the  sake  of  antislavery  ; 
if  we  can  fill  yonder  State-House  with  legislative  action 
that  shall  vindicate  the  old  fame  of  the  State  ;  if  we  can 
fill  every  town-house  and  school-house  in  the  State  with 
antislavery  agitation,  —  then  the  eyes  of  every  caucus  and 
every  political  meeting,  and  of  Congress,  will  all  turn 
North,  and,  God  willing,  they  shall  see  a  North  worth 
looking  at.  We  will  have  better  evidence  than  tile  some 
what  apocryphal  assurance  of  Mr.  Webster,  at  Marsh- 
field,  in  '48,  that  the  North  Star  is  at  last  discovered. 
There  will  not  only  be  a  shrine,  but  worshippers. 
[Cheers.] 

I  have  not  the  voice  to  detain  this  meeting  any  longer. 
I  am  rejoiced  to  find  myself  again  in  Faneuil  Hall.  I  am 
glad  it  has  so  happened  that  the  very  first  meeting  of  the 
Massachusetts  Antislavery  Society  since  April  12th,  1851, 
has  been  within  these  walls,  and  that  the  first  note  of  their 
rebuke  of  the  city  government,  and  of  the  Milk  Street 
interest  whose  servant  it  stooped  to  be,  has  been  from  the 
platform  of  Faneuil  Hall.  [Applause.] 


SIMS  ANNIVERSARY.* 


M 


R.   CHAIRMAN:    There  is  a  resolution    on   your 
table  to  this  effect :  — 


"  Resolved,  Therefore,  That  we  advise  all  colored  persons, 
liable  to  these  arrests,  to  leave  the  United  States,  unless  they 
are  fully  resolved  to  take  the  life  of  any  officer  who  shall  attempt, 
under  any  pretext,  to  seize  them  ;  and  we  urge  the  formation  in 
every  town  of  vigilance  committees,  prepared  to  secure  to  every 
person  claimed  as  a  slave  the  fullest  trial  possible,  and  to  avail 
themselves  fearlessly,  according  to  their  best  judgment,  of  all  the 
means  God  and  Nature  have  put  into  their  hands,  to  see  that 
substantial  justice  be  done." 

To  this  Mr.  Garrison  moves  as  an  amendment  the 
following :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  if  '  resistance  to  tyrants,'  by  bloody  weapons, 
1  is  obedience  to  God,'  and  if  our  Revolutionary  fathers  were  justi 
fied  in  wading  through  blood  to  freedom  and  independence,  then 
every  fugitive  slave  is  justified  in  arming  himself  for  protection 
and  defence,  —  in  taking  the  life  of  every  marshal,  commissioner, 
or  other  person  who  attempts  to  reduce  him  to  bondage  ;  and  the 
millions  who  are  clanking  their  chains  on  our  soil  find  ample 
warrant  in  rising  en  ntasse,  and  asserting  their  right  to  liberty,  at 
whatever  sacrifice  of  the  life  of  their  oppressors. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  State  in  which  no  fugitive  slave  can 
remain  in  safety,  and  from  which  he  must  flee  in  order  to  secure 

*  Speech  at  the  Melodeon,  on  the  First  Anniversary  of  the  Rendition  of 
Thomas  Sims,  April  12,  1852. 


72  SIMS  ANNIVERSARY. 

his  liberty  in  another  land,  is  to  be  held  responsible  for  all  the 
crimes  and  horrors  which  cluster  about  the  slave-system  and  the 
slave-trade,  —  and  that  State  is  the  Commonwealth  of  Massa 
chusetts." 

I  incline  to  the  first  form,  rather  than  to  that  suggested 
by  my  friend,  though  such  is  my  conviction  of  the  sound 
ness  of  his  judgment  and  his  rare  insight  into  all  the  bear 
ings  of  our  cause,  that  I  distrust  my  own  deliberate  judg 
ment,  when  it  leads  me  to  a  different  conclusion  from  his. 

I  am,  however,  strongly  impressed  with  the  conviction, 
that  the  friends  of  the  cause  and  the  fugitives  among  us 
need  some  advice  ;  and  that  we  cannot  make  a  better  use 
of  this  occasion  than  to  discuss  what  that  advice  shall  be. 
Mr.  Garrison's  amendment  seems  to  me  too  ambiguous  ; 
it  contents  itself  with  announcing  an  important  principle, 
but  suggests  nothing,  and  advises  nothing. 

Why,  Mr.  Chairman,  do  we  assemble  here  on  such  a 
melancholy  occasion  as  the  present  ?  This,  instead  of  last 
Thursday,  should  be  our  Fast  Day,  if  there  were  any 
reason  for  us  to  fast  at  all,  —  for  on  this  day,  t\velve 
months  ago,  the  Abolitionists  of  the  Commonwealth  suf 
fered  a  great,  a  melancholy  defeat.  On  that  day,  unex 
pectedly  to  many.,  a  man  was  carried  back  to  slavery  from 
the  capital  of  the  State.  It  was  an  event  which  surprised 
some  of  our  fellow-citizens,  and  all  the  rest  of  New  Eng 
land,  which  relied  too  fondly  on  the  reputation  Massachu 
setts  had  won  as  an  antislavery  community.  Either  the 
flavor  of  our  old  religion,  or  some  remnant  of  the  spirit  of 
1649  and  1776,  had  made  the  city  of  the  Puritans  a  house 
of  refuge  to  the  fugitive.  They  had  gathered  here,  and 
in  our  neighborhood,  by  hundreds.  There  are  traditions 
of  attempts  to  seize  one  now  and  then,  —  sometimes  of 
trials  in  open  court ;  and  it  is  possible  that,  in  the  general 
indifference,  a  few  may  have  been  carried  back  quietly  by 
some  underling  official,  though  we  have  no  certain  knowl- 


SIMS  ANNIVERSARY.  73 

edge  of  any  case  where  the  victim  was  not  finally  saved. 
Thomas  S.ms  is  the  first  man  that  the  city  of  Boston  ever 
openly  bound  and  fettered,  and  sent  back  to  bondage.  I 
have  no  heart  to  dwell  on  so  horrible  an  outrage  :  —  that 
sad  procession,  in  the  dim  morning,  through  our  streets,  — 
the  poor  youth,  —  his  noble  effort  to  break  his  chains,  — 
mocked  with  one  short  hour  of  freedom,  and  then  thrust 
back  to  the  hell  he  had  escaped,  by  brother  men,  in  the 
prostituted  names  of  justice  and  religion.  We  sit  down 
with  the  single  captive,  and  weep  with  him  as  the  iron 
enters  into  his  soul,  —  too  sad  to  think,  for  the  moment, 
of  the  disgrace  of  our  city,  or  even  the  wickedness  of  its 
rulers.  Pity  swallows  up  indignation.  We  might  be  for 
given  if  for  the  moment  we  mistook  our  sadness  for  despair, 
and  even  fancied  the  event  disastrous  to  others  than  the 
victim.  But  not  so.  Liberty  knows  nothing  but  victories. 
In  a  cause  like  ours,  to  which  every  attribute  of  the  Most 
High  is  pledged,  "  everything  helps  us."  Selfish  com 
merce,  huckstering  politics,  and  the  mocking  priest,  might 
turn  from  such  a  scene  and  congratulate  each  other,  say 
ing,  "  Our  mountain  stands  strong  "  ;  but  we  knew  that 
emotions  were  stronger  than  statutes,  more  lasting  than 
ledgers,  and  not  to  be  frozen  down  even  by  creeds,  and 
that  all  New  England  would  erelong  gather  itself  to 
answer  the  last  sad  question  of  this  hapless  victim,  as  he 
stepped  on  the  piratical  deck  of  the  Acorn,  — "  Is  this 
Massachusetts  liberty  ?  " 

What,  then,  is  the  use  of  such  a  celebration  as  this  ?  It 
seems  to  me  the  only  possible  use  that  could,  in  any  cir 
cumstances,  be  made  of  such  an  occasion,  would  be  to  record 
our  protest  against  the  deed,  with  an  indignant  rebuke  of 
its  perpetrators,  and  to  direct  our  eyes  forward  to  see  what 
we  can  now  do  for  men  in  like  jeopardy  with  Sims.  Our 
protest  and  our  rebuke  have  been  already  uttered.  It  is 
needless  to  repeat  them.  The  individuals  who  so  infa- 


74  SIMS  ANNIVERSARY. 

mously  misused  their  little  brief  authority  have,  some  of 
them,  faded  from  the  public  eye,  —  melted  back  into  the 
mass  of  their  fellow-slaves.  Their  names  are  not  worth 
recalling,  for  they  are  not  of  mark  enough  to  point  a  moral. 
Let  them  pass,  all  of  them  ;  —  the  judge  who  stood  head 
and  shoulders  above  the  rest  in  brutal  bearing  and  the  arts 
of  a  demagogue  ;  the  commissioner,  whom  the  atmosphere 
of  noble  enthusiasm  about  him  never  betrayed,  during  all 
that  eventful  week,  into  even  the  semblance  of  an  honora 
ble  emotion  ;  the  counsellor  who  pledged  a  word,  till  then 
undoubted,  to  that  lie  for  which  no  guaranty  but  his  could 
have  won  even  a  momentary  credence,  and  the  belief  of 
which  snapped  the  last  tiny  thread  of  hope  that  bound 
the  hapless  victim  to  the  altar  of  Massachusetts  criminal 
law. 

Yes,  let  them  pass.  The  few  whom  charity  may  hope 
sinned,  unable  to  "  discern  between  their  right  hand  and 
their  left  hand,"  and  the  many  who  did  just  right  enough 
to  prove  they  knew  their  duty,  but  wallowed  in  the  wrong 
so  greedily  as  to  show  how  much  they  loved  it.  Let  His 
tory  close  the  record.  Let  her  allow  that  "  on  the  side  of 
the  oppressor  there  was  power,"  —  power  "  to  frame  mis 
chief  by  .a  law"  ;  that  on  that  side  were  all  the  forms  of 
law,  and  behind  those  forms,  most  of  the  elements  of  con 
trol  :  wealth,  greedy  of  increase,  and  anxious  for  order,  at 
any  sacrifice  of  principle,  —  priests  prophesying  smooth 
things,  and  arrogating  to  themselves  the  name  of  Chris 
tianity,  —  ambition,  baptizing  itself  statesmanship,  —  and 
that  unthinking  patriotism,  child  of  habit  and  not  of  rea 
son,  which  mistakes  government  for  liberty  and  law 
for  justice.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  let  her  allow  that, 
though  the  Abolitionists  were  heedful  of  the  hour,  and 
fearless  against  the  prelates  of  the  Church  > 

"  to  plead  her  cause, 
And  from  our  judges  vindicate  the  laws,"  — 


SIMS   ANNIVERSARY.  75 

while  they  "  did  not  spare  the  tyrant  one  hard  word,"  — 
they  were  strictly  law-abiding  citizens.  While  judges 
and  executives  deserted  their  posts,  the  Abolitionists  vio 
lated  no  law.  They  begged  for  nothing  but  the  law,  — 
they  wearied  themselves  to  obtain  the  simple  legal  rights 
guaranteed  to  them  and  to  all  by  the  State.  The  city 
government,  in  direct  defiance  of  the  statute  of  1843, 
aided,  both  directly  and  indirectly,  in  the  arrest  and  deten 
tion  of  a  person  claimed  as  a  slave.  To  effect  this  purpose, 
they  violated  the  commonest  rights  of  the  citizens,  —  shut 
them  out  of  their  own  court-house,  —  subjected  them  from 
day  to  day  to  needless,  illegal,  and  vexatious  arrests. 
Judges  were  "Artful  Dodgers,"  and  sheriffs  refused  all 
processes.  The  Abolitionists  exhausted  every  device,  be 
sieged  every  tribunal,  implored  the  interference  of  every 
department,  to  obtain  the  bare  execution  of  the  law  of  the 
Commonwealth.  And  let  History  say  beside,  that  mean 
time  they  fearlessly  declared  that  resistance  would  be 
better  than  submission  ;  while  not  so  absurd  as  to  throw 
one  man,  or  a  score  of  men,  against  a  government  in  arms, 
they  proclaimed  that  they  would  have  been  glad  to  see  the 
people  rise  against  the  law,  —  that  nothing  which  a  hand 
ful  of  men  could  do  for  such  an  end  was  wanting,  —  that 
they  denounced  the  church  sanctioning  the  deed  as  "  a 
synagogue  of  Satan,"  and  the  law,  whether  constitutional 
or  not,  as  mere  tyranny  and  wickedness,  its  executioners 
worse  than  murderers,  —  that,  knowing  the  value  of  a  true 
law  and  real  order,  they  said  and  believed,  that  rather 
than  one  man  should  be  sent  back  to  slavery,  better,  far 
better,  human  laws  should  be  trampled  under  foot,  and  the 
order  of  society  broken  every  day. 

When  the  pulpit  preached  slave-hunting,  and  the  law 
bound  the  victim,  and  society  said,  "  Amen  !  this  will  make 
money,"  we  were  "fanatics,"  —  "enthusiasts,"  —  "sedi 
tious,  —  "  disorganizes,"  —  "  scorners  of  the  pulpit,"  — 


76  SIMS    ANNIVERSARY. 

"  traitors."  Genius  of  the  Past !  drop  not  from  thy  tablets 
one  of  these  honorable  names.  We  claim  them  all  as  our 
surest  title-deeds  to  the  memory  and  gratitude  of  mankind. 
We  indeed  thought  man  more  than  constitutions,  humanity 
and  justice  of  more  worth  than  law.  Seal  up  the  record  ! 
If  Boston  is  proud  of  her  part,  let  her  rest  assured  we  are 
not  ashamed  of  ours  ! 

All  this  has  been  said  so  often,  that  it  is  useless  to  dwell 
on  it  now.  The  best  use  that  we  can  now  make  of  this 
occasion,  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  look  about  us,  take  our 
bearings,  and  tell  the  fugitives,  over  whom  yet  hangs  this 
terrible  statute,  what  course,  in  our  opinion,  they  should 
pursue. 

And,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  neither  frank  nor  honest  to 
keep  up  the  delusive  idea  that  a  fugitive  slave  can  be  pro 
tected  in  Massachusetts.  I  hope  I  am  mistaken  ;  I  shall 
be  glad  to  be  proved  incorrect ;  but  I  do  not  believe  there 
is  any  such  antislavery  sentiment  here  as  is  able  to  protect 
a  fugitive  on  whom  the  government  has  once  laid  its  hand. 
We  were  told  this  afternoon,  from  this  platform,  that  there 
were  one  hundred  and  fifty  men  in  one  town  ready  to 
come  with  their  muskets  to  Boston,  —  all  they  waited  for 
was  an  invitation.  I  heard,  three  weeks  before  the  Sims 
case,  that  there  were  a  hundred  in  one  town  in  Plymouth 
County  pledged  to  shoulder  their  muskets  in  such  a  cause. 
We  saw  nothing  of  them.  I  heard,  three  weeks  after  the 
Sims  rendition,  that  there  were  two  hundred  more  in  the 
city  of  Worcester  ready  to  have  come,  had  they  been 
invited.  We  saw  nothing  of  them.  On  such  an  occasion, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  there  cannot  be  much  previous 
concert ;  the  people  must  take  their  own  cause  into  their 
own  hands.  Intense  earnestness  of  purpose,  pervading 
large  classes,  must  instinctively  perceive  the  crisis,  and 
gather  all  spontaneously  for  the  first  act  which  is  to  organ 
ize  revolution.  When  the  Court  was  in  pursuit  of  John 


SIMS   ANNIVERSAKY.  77 

flampden,  we  are  not  told  that  the  two  thousand  men  who 
rode  up  to  London  the  next  morning,  to  stand  between 
their  representative  and  a  king's  frown,  waited  for  an 
invitation.  They  assembled  of  their  own  voluntary  and 
individual  purpose,  and  found  themselves  in  London. 
Whenever  there  is  a  like  determination  throughout  Mas 
sachusetts,  it  will  need  no  invitation.  When,  in  1775, 
the  British  turned  their  eyes  toward  Lexington,  the  same 
invitation  went  out  from  the  Vigilance  Committee  of  Me 
chanics  in  Boston,  as  in  our  case  of  April,  1851.  Two 
lanterns  on  the  North  Church  steeple  telegraphed  the  fact 
to  the  country ;  Revere  and  Prescott,  as  they  rode  from 
house  to  house  in  the  gray  light  of  that  April  morning, 
could  tell  little  what  others  would  do,  —  they  flung  into 
each  house  the  startling  announcement,  "  The  red-coats 
are  coming  !  "  and  rode  on.  None  that  day  issued  orders, 
none  obeyed  aught  but  his  own  soul.  Though  Massachu 
setts  rocked  from  Barnstable  to  Berkshire,  when  the  wire 
flashed  over  the  land  the  announcement  that  a  slave  lay 
chained  in  the  Boston  court-house,  there  was  no  answer 
from  the  antislavery  feeling  of  the  State.  It  is  sad,  there 
fore,  but  it  seems  to  me  honest,  to  say  to  the  fugitive  in 
Boston,  or  on  his  way,  that,  if  the  government  once  seize 
him,  he  cannot  be  protected  here.  I  think  we  are  bound, 
in  common  kindness  and  honesty,  to  tell  them  that  there 
are  but  two  ways  that  promise  any  refuge  from  the  hor 
rors  of  a  return  to  bondage  :  one  is  to  fly,  —  to  place 
themselves  under  the  protection  of  that  government, 
which,  with  all  her  faults,  has  won  the  proud  distinction 
that  slaves  cannot  breathe  her  air,  —  the  fast-anchored  isle 
of  empire,  where  tyrants  and  slaves  may  alike  find  refuge 
from  vengeance  and  oppression.  AND  THIS  is  THE  COURSE 

I  WOULD  ADVISE  EVERY  MAN  TO  ADOPT.  THIS,  UNLESS 
THERE  ARE,  IN  HIS  PARTICULAR  CASE,  IMPERATIVE  REASONS 

TO  THE  CONTRARY,  is  HIS  DUTY.     If  this  course  be  impos- 


78 


SIMS   ANNIVERSARY. 


sible,  then  the  other  way  is  to  arm  himself,  and  by  resist 
ance  secure  in  the  Free  States  a  trial  for  homicide,  —  trust 
ing  that  no  jury  will  be  able  so  far  to  crush  the  instincts 
of  humanity  as  not  to  hold  him  justified. 

But  some  one  may  ask,  Why  countenance,  even  by  a 
mention  of  it,  this  public  resistance,  —  you,  whose  whole 
enterprise  repudiates  force  ?  Because  this  is  a  very 
different  question  from  that  great  issue,  the  abolition  of 
slavery.  On  that  point,  I  am  willing  to  wait.  I  can  be 
patient,  no  matter  how  often  that  is  defeated  by  treach 
erous  statesmen.  The  cause  of  three  millions  of  slaves, 
the  destruction  of  a  great  national  institution,  must  pro 
ceed  slowly ;  and,  like  every  other  change  in  public  senti 
ment,  we  must  wait  patiently  for  it,  and  there  the  best 
policy  is,  beyond  all  question,  the  policy  of  submission  ;  for 
that  gains,  in  time,  on  public  sympathy.  But  this  is  a 
different  case.  Who  can  ask  the  trembling,  anxious  fugi 
tive  to  stop  and  submit  patiently  to  the  overwhelming 
chances  of  going  back,  that  his  fate  may,  in  some  indirect 
manner,  and  far-off  hour,  influence  for  good  the  destiny 
of  his  fellow-millions  ?  Such  virtue  must  be  self-moved. 
Who  could  stand  and  ask  it  of  another  ?  True,  Thomas 
Sims  returned  is  a  great  public  event,  calculated  to  make 
Abolitionists  ;  but  the  game  sickens  me  when  the  counters 
are  living  men.  We  have  no  right  to  use  up  fugitives 
for  the  manufacture  of  antislavery  sentiment.  There  are 
those  who  hang  one  man  to  benefit  another,  and  to  create 
a  wholesome  dread  of  crime.  I  shrink  from  using  human 
life  as  raw  material  for  the  production  of  any  state  of  pub 
lic  opinion,  however  valuable.  I  do  not  think  we  have  a 
right  to  use  up  fugitive  slaves  in  this  pitiless  way,  in  order 
to  extend  or  deepen  an  antislavery  sentiment.  At  least,  I 
have  no  riglit  to  use  them  so,  without  theii  full  consent. 
It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  we  are  bound  to  tell  those 
who  have  taken  refuge  under  the  laws  of  Massachusetts, 


SIMS    ANNIVERSARY.  79 

what  they  must  expect  here.  The  time  was  when  we 
honestly  believed  they  might  expect  protection.  That 
time,  in  my  opinion,  has  passed  by.  I  do  not  certainly 
know  that  there  will  be  any  taken  this  year  or  next.  I 
do  not  know  when  they  may  choose  again  to  take  another 
man  from  Boston.  But  I  do  know,  that  just  so  soon  as 
any  other  miscreant  Webster  [hisses  and  cheers]  shall 
think  it  necessary  to  lay  another  fugitive  slave  on  the  altar 
of  his  Presidential  chances,  just  so  soon  will  another  be 
taken  from  the  streets  of  Boston.  I  note  those  hisses. 
Do  not  understand  me  that  Mr.  Webster  himself  will  ever 
find  it  worth  while  again  to  ask  this  act  of  vassal  service 
from  his  retainers.  O  no  !  wait  a  few  months,  and  his 
fate  will  be  that  of  Buckingham  :  — 

"  wicked  but  in  will,  of  means  bereft, 
He  left  not  faction,  but  of  that  was  left." 

But  even  though  he  die  or  be  shelved,  the  race  of  traitors 
will  not  be  extinct ;  and  it  is  a  sickening  dread  for  these 
two  or  three  hundred  men  and  women  to  live  with  this 
law,  worse  than  the  sword  of  Damocles,  hanging  over 
their  heads.  I  believe  the  Abolitionists  of  the  country 
owe  it  to  their  brethren  to  tell  them  what  policy  should 
rule  their  conduct  in  the  present  crisis.  To  be  sure,  you 
may  ask  them  to  stay,  and,  when  they  are  taken,  to  sub 
mit,  and  let  the  fact  appeal  to  the  sympathies  of  the  coun 
try,  which  will  result  in  kindling  public  indignation  ;  and 
if  they  choose,  from  deep  religious  convictions,  to  make 
themselves  thus  the  food  of  antislavery  growth,  God  bless 
them  for  the  heroic  self-sacrifice  which  dictates  such  a 
course.  But  I  cannot  ask  of  a  poor,  friendless,  broken 
hearted  fellow-creature  such  a  momentous  sacrifice.  I  do 
say,  in  private,  to  every  one  that  comes  to  me,  "  But  one 
course  is  left  for  you.  There  is  no  safety  for  you  here  ; 
there  is  no  law  for  you  here.  The  hearts  of  the  judges 
are  stone  ,  the  hearts  of  the  people  are  stone.  It  is  in 


80  SIMS  ANNIVERSARY. 

vain  that  you  appeal  to  the  Abolitionists.  They  may  be 
ready,  may  be  able,  ten  years  hence."  But  the  "  brace 
of  Adamses,"  to  which  our  friend  [Theodore  Parker] 
alluded  this  morning,  if  they  had  mistaken  1765  for  1775, 
would  have  ended  at  the  scaffold  instead  of  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  and  the  treaty  of  1783.  We  must 
bide  our  time,  and  we  must  read,  with  anointed  eyes,  the 
signs  of  our  time.  If  public  opinion  is  wrong,  we  want  to 
know  it ;  know  it,  that  we  may  remodel  it.  We  will  our 
selves  trample  this  accursed  Fugitive  Slave  Law  under 
foot.  [Great  cheering.]  But  we  are  a  minority  at  pres 
ent,  and  cannot  do  this  to  any  great  practical  effect  ;  we 
are  bound  to  suggest  to  these  unfortunates  who  look  to  us 
for  advice,  some  feasible  plan.  This,  in  my  view,  should 
be  our  counsel:  "Depart  if  you  can,  —  if  you  have 
time  and  means.  As  no  one  has  a  right  to  ask  that  you 
stay,  and,  if  arrested,  submit,  in  order  that  your  case  may 
convert  men  to  antislaverys  principles  ;  so  you  have  no 
right,  capriciously,  to  stay  and  resist,  merely  that  your 
resistance  may  rouse  attention,  and  awaken  antislavery 
sympathy.  It  is  a  grave  thing  to  break  into  the  bloody 
house  of  life.  The  mere  expectation  of  good  conse 
quences  will  not  justify  you  in  taking  a  man's  life.  You 
have  a  perfect  right  to  live  where  you  choose.  No  one 
can  rightfully  force  you  away.  There  may  be  important 
and  sufficient  reasons,  in  many  cases,  why  you  should  stay 
and  vindicate  your  right  at  all  hazards.  But  in  common 
cases,  where  no  such  reasons  exist,  it  is  better  that  you  sur 
render  your  extreme  right  to  live  where  you  choose,  than 
assert  it  in  blood,  and  thus  risk  injuring  the  movement 
which  seeks  to  aid  your  fellows.  Put  yourselves  under 
the  protection  of  the  British  flag  ;  appeal  to  the  humanity 
of  the  world.  Do  not  linger  here."  Does  any  friend  of 
the  cause  exclaim,  u  You  take  away  the  great  means  of 
antislavery  agitation  !  The  sight  of  a  slave  carried  back  to 


SIMS   ANNIVERSARY  81 

bondage  is  the  most  eloquent  appeal  the  antislavery  cause 
can  make  to  the  sympathies  of  the  public."  I  know  it ! 
but  the  gain  is  all  too  dear  when  it  is  bought  by  the  sacri 
fice  of  one  man,  thrust  back  to  the  hell  of  American  bond 
age.  Still,  circumstances  may  prevent  flight,  imperative 
reasons  may  exist  why  he  should  remain  here  :  he  may  be 
seized  before  he  succeeds  in  escaping.  I  say  to  him,  then, 
There  is  a  course  left,  if  you  have  the  courage  to  face  it. 
There  is  one  appeal  left,  which  has  not  yet  been  tried  ;  it 
may  avail  you  ;  I  cannot  insure  you  even  that.  It  has 
now  reached  that  pass  when  even  the  chance  of  a  Boston 
gibbet  may  be  no  protection  from  a  Georgia  plantation ; 
but  if  I  were  in  your  place,  I  would  try  !  [Tremendous 
cheering.]  The  sympathies  of  the  people  will  gather 
round  you,  if  put  on  trial  for  such  an  act.  The  mortal 
hatred  which  would  set  the  hounds  of  the  law,  thirsty 
for  our  blood,  on  keener  scent,  if  we  stood  charged  with 
legal  offences,  would  not  reach  you.  I  do  not  know  that 
the  state-prison  would  be  any  refuge  from  the  jail  at 
Savannah  or  Charleston  ;  but  there  may  be  something 
in  an  appeal  to  a  Massachusetts  jury  impanelled  to  try  a 
man's  INALIENABLE  right  to  liberty,  the  pursuit  of  happi 
ness,  and  to  protect  himself ;  and  I  hope  —  I  dare  not 
hope  much,  but  I  do  hope  —  that  there  is  still  humanity 
enough  to  bring  you  in  "  not  guilty."  There  is  another 
point.  I  really  believe  if  a  jury  of  Boston  merchants 
should  steel  themselves  to  a  verdict  of  guilty,  that  a  Gov 
ernor  sitting  in  the  seat  of  Samuel  Adams  or  Henry  Yane 
would  never  dare  to  sign  the  warrant,  until  he  had  secured 
a  passage  on  board  a  Cunard  steamer.  I  think,  therefore, 
that  it  is  possible  an  appeal  to  the  criminal  jurisdiction  of 
the  State  might  save  a  man.  Perhaps  it  might  be  just 
that  final  blow  which  would  stun  this  drunken  nation  into 
sobriety,  and  make  it  heed,  at  last,  the  claims  of  the  slave. 
Mark  me  !  I  do  not  advise  any  one  to  take  the  life  of 

6 


82  SIMS  ANNIVERSARY. 

his  fellow,  —  to  brave  the  vengeance  of  the  law,  and  run 
the  somewhat,  after  all,  unequal  risk  of  the  hard  tech 
nical  heart  of  a  Massachusetts  jury.  Such  an  act  must  be, 
after  all,  one's  own  impulse.  To  burst  away  from  all 
civil  relations,  to  throw  one's  self  back  on  this  great  primal 
right  of  self-protection,  at  all  hazards,  must  be  the  growth 
of  one's  own  thought  and  purpose.  I  can  only  tell  the 
sufferer  the  possibilities  that  lie  before  him,  —  tell  him 
what  I  would  do  in  his  case,  —  tell  him  that  what  I  would 
do  myself  I  would  countenance  another  in  doing,  and  aid 
him  to  the  extent  of  my  power. 

The  antislavery  cause  is  a  wonder  to  many.  They 
wonder  that  it  does  not  succeed  faster.  We  see  William 
Cobbett,  with  his  Political  Register,  circulating  seventy 
thousand  copies  per  week,  appeal  to  the  workingmen  of 
Great  Britain,  and  in  a  few  years  he  carries  his  measures 
over  the  head  of  Parliament.  Cobden  talks  the  farmers  of 
England,  in  less  than  ten  years,  out  of  a  tyranny  that  had 
endured  for  generations.  The  difference  is,  we  have  no  such 
selfish  motives  to  appeal  to.  We  appeal  to  white  men, 
who  cannot  see  any  present  interest  they  have  in  the 
slave  question.  It  is  impossible  to  stir  them.  They  must 
ascend  to  a  level  of  disinterestedness  which  the  masses 
seldom  reach,  before  we  can  create  any  excitement  in 
them  on  the  question  of  slavery.  I  do  not  know  when 
that  point  will  be  gained.  If  we  shall  ever  be  able  to 
reach,  through  the  press,  the  millions  of  non-slaveholding 
white  men  in  the  Southern  States,  I  think  we  shall  have 
a  parallel  then  to  the  course  of  English  agitation  ;  for  we 
can  then  appeal  to  the  selfish  interest  of  white  men,  able 
to  vote,  to  speak,  and  to  act  on  this  subject.  But  at 
present  we  have  to  make  men  interested,  indignant,  en 
thusiastic  for  others,  not  for  themselves.  The  slave  ques 
tion  halts  and  lingers,  because  it  cannot  get  the  selfishness 
of  men  on  its  side  ;  and  that,  after  all,  has  been  the  lever 


SIMS  ANNIVERSARY.  83 

by  which  the  greatest  political  questions  have  been  car 
ried. 

There  is  one  other  motive  ;  that  is,  fear.  Cobbett  and 
his  fellows  gathered  the  people  of  Great  Britain  in  public 
meetings  of  two  hundred  thousand  men  ;  and  though  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  ordered  his  Scotch  Greys  to  rough- 
grind  their  swords,  as  at  Waterloo,  he  feared  to  order 
them  drawn  in  the  face  of  two  hundred  thousand  English 
men.  That  gathering  was  for  their  own  rights.  Cross  the 
Channel,  and  you  come  to  the  Irish  question.  How  was 
that  dealt  with  ?  By  fear.  When  Ireland  got  no  sym 
pathy  from  the  English  people,  she  so  ordered  her  affairs 
that  the  dread  of  anarchy,  anchored  so  close  to  Liverpool 
and  Bristol,  forced  the  government  to  treat  the  question, 
and  they  treated  it  by  submission. 

Now,  I  read  my  lesson  in  the  light  of  this  historical 
experience.  I  cannot  yet  move  the  selfishness  of  the 
white  man  to  help  me.  On  this  question  I  cannot  get  it 
on  my  side.  It  is  just  possible  that  the  fugitive  slave, 
taking  his  defence  into  his  own  right  hand,  and  appealing 
to  the  first  principle  of  natural  law,  may  so  excite  the 
sympathy  of  some  and  the  fears  of  others,  as  to  gain  the 
attention  of  all,  and  force  them  to  grapple  with  this  problem 
of  slavery  and  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill.  The  time  may  come 
when  Massachusetts  may  not  be  willing  to  have  her  cities 
scenes  of  bloodshed,  in  order  that  one  over-ambitious  man 
may  gain  his  point,  and  smooth  his  path  to  the  Presidency  ; 
or  that  a  human  being  should  be  hurried  into  bondage, 
that  rich  men  may  add  field  to  field  and  house  to  house. 

I  have  striven  to  present  this  point  as  slowly,  as  fully, 
as  deliberately  as  possible,  because  I  know  it  is  an  impor 
tant  one.  It  is,  in  some  sense,  the  launching  of  a  new 
measure  in  the  antislavery  enterprise,  to  countenance  the 
fugitive,  who  has  tried  in  vain  every  avenue  of  escape,  in 
standing  even  at  last  at  bay,  and  protecting  himself.  But 


84  SIMS  ANNIVERSARY. 

I  know  of  no  pledge  of  the  antislavery  cause  against  it. 
Our  enterprise  is  pledged  to  nothing  but  the  abolition  of 
slavery.  When  we  set  out,  we  said  we  would  do  our 
work  under  the  government  and  under  the  Church.  We 
tried  it.  We  found  that  we  could  not  work  in  either 
way;  we  found  it  necessary  to  denounce  the  Church 
and  withdraw  from  the  government.  We  did  what  we 
could  to  work  through  both.  We  saw  that  it  wras  expe 
dient  to  work  through  them  both,  if  we  could.  Finding 
it  impossible,  we  let  experience  dictate  our  measures. 
We  came  out.  Consistency  —  consistency  bade  us  come 
out.  CONSISTENCY,  —  we  cannot  always  sail  due  east, 
though  our  destination  be  Europe.  It  is  no  violation  of 
consistency,  therefore,  (if  that  were  of  any  consequence,) 
for  us  to  adopt  a  measure  like  this,  though  it  was  not  at 
first  contemplated. 

I  go  further.  I  do  not  believe  that,  if  we  should  live  to 
the  longest  period  Providence  ever  allots  to  the  life  of  a 
human  being,  we  shall  see  the  total  abolition  of  slavery, 
unless  it  comes  in  some  critical  conjuncture  of  national 
affairs,  when  the  slave,  taking  advantage  of  a  crisis  in  the 
fate  of  his  masters,  shall  dictate  his  own  terms.  How  did 
French  slavery  go  down  ?  How  did  the  French  slave- 
trade  go  down  ?  When  Napoleon  came  back  from  Elba, 
when  his  fate  hung  trembling  in  the  balance,  and  he 
wished  to  gather  around  him  the  sympathies  of  the  liberals 
of  Europe,  he  no  sooner  set  foot  in  the  Tuileries  than  he 
signed  the  edict  abolishing  the  slave-trade,  against  which 
the  Abolitionists  of  England  and  France  had  protested  for 
twenty  years  in  vain.  And  the  trade  went  down,  because 
Napoleon  felt  that  he  must  do  something  to  gild  the  dark 
ening  hour  of  his  second  attempt  to  clutch  the  sceptre  of 
France.  How  did  the  slave  system  go  down  ?  When,  in 
1848,  the  Provisional  Government  found  itself  in  the  H<3- 
tel  de  Ville,  obliged  to  do  something  to  draw  to  itself 


SIMS  ANNIVERSARY.  85 

the  sympathy  and  liberal  feeling  of  the  French  nation, 
they  signed  an  edict  —  it  was  the  first  from  the  nascent 
Republic  —  abolishing  the  death-penalty  and  slavery. 
The  storm  which  rocked  the  vessel  of  state  almost  to 
foundering,  snapped  forever  the  chain  of  the  French  slave. 
Look,  too,  at  the  history  of  Mexican  and  South  American 
emancipation ;  you  will  find  that  it  was,  in  every  instance, 
I  think,  the  child  of  convulsion. 

The  hour  will  come  —  God  hasten  it !  —  when  the 
American  people  shall  so  stand  on  the  deck  of  their  Union, 
"  built  i'  th'  eclipse,  and  rigged  with  curses  dark."  If  I 
live  to  see  that  hour,  I  shall  say  to  every  slave,  Strike 
now  for  Freedom  !  [Long-continued  and  deafening 
cheers.]  The  balance  hangs  trembling  ;  it  is  uncertain 
which  scale  shall  kick  the  beam.  Strain  every  nerve, 
wrestle  with  every  power  God  and  nature  have  put  into 
your  hands,  for  your  place  among  the  races  of  this  Western 
world  "  ;  and  that  hour  will  free  the  slave.  The  Aboli 
tionist  who  shall  stand  in  such  an  hour  as  that,  and  keep 
silence,  will  be  recreant  to  the  cause  of  three  million 
of  his  fellow-men  in  bonds.  I  believe  that  probably  is 
the  only  way  in  which  we  shall  ever,  any  of  us,  see  the 
downfall  of  American  slavery.  I  do  not  shrink  from  the 
toast  with  which  Dr.  Johnson  flavored  his  Oxford  Port,  — 
"  Success  to  the  first  insurrection  of  the  blacks  in  Ja 
maica  ! "  I  do  not  shrink  from  the  sentiment  of  Southey, 
in  a  letter  to  Duppa,  —  "  There  are  scenes  of  tremendous 
horror  which  I  could  smile  at  by  Mercy's  side.  An  insur 
rection  which  should  make  the  negroes  masters  of  the 
West  Indies  is  one."  I  believe  both  these  sentiments  are 
dictated  by  the  highest  humanity.  I  know  what  anarchy 
is.  I  know  what  civil  war  is.  I  can  imagine  the  scenes 
of  blood  through  which  a  rebellious  slave-population  must 
march  to  their  rights.  They  are  dreadful.  And  yet,  I 
do  not  know  that,  to  an  enlightened  mind,  a  scene  of  civil 


86  SIMS  ANNIVEESARY. 

war  is  any  more  sickening  than  the  thought  of  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  of  slavery.  Take  the  broken  hearts,  the 
bereaved  mothers,  the  infant  wrung  from  the  hands  of 
its  parents,  the  husband  and  wife  torn  asunder,  everv 
right  trodden  under  foot,  the  blighted  hopes,  the  imbruted 
souls,  the  darkened  and  degraded  millions,  sunk  below 
the  level  of  intellectual  life,  melted  in  sensuality,  herded 
with  beasts,  who  have  walked  over  the  burning  marl  of 
Southern  slavery  to  their  graves,  and  where  is  the  battle 
field,  however  ghastly,  that  is  not  white  —  white  as  an 
angel's  wing  —  compared  with  the  blackness  of  that  dark 
ness  which  has  brooded  over  the  Carolinas  for  two  hundred 
years  ?  [Great  sensation.]  Do  you  love  mercy  ?  Weigh 
out  the  fifty  thousand  hearts  that  have  beaten  their  last 
pulse  amid  agonies  of  thought  and  suffering  fancy  faints  to 
think  of,  and  the  fifty  thousand  mothers  who,  with  sicken 
ing  senses,  watch  for  footsteps  that  are  not  wont  to  tarry 
long  in  their  coming,  and  soon  find  themselves  left  to  tread 
the  pathway  of  life  alone,  —  add  all  the  horrors  of  cities 
sacked  and  lands  laid  waste,  —  that  is  war,  —  weigh  it 
now  against  some  young,  trembling  girl  sent  to  the  aiiction- 
block,  some  man  like  that  taken  from  our  court-house  and 
carried  back  into  Georgia  ;  multiply  this  individual  agony 
into  three  millions  ;  multiply  that  into  centuries  ;  and  that 
into  all  the  relations  of  father  and  child,  husband  and 
wife  ;  heap  on  all  the  deep  moral  degradation  both  of  the 
oppressor  and  the  oppressed,  —  and  tell  me  if  Waterloo  or 
Thermopylae  can  claim  one  tear  from  the  eye  even  of  the 
tenderest  spirit  of  mercy,  compared  with  this  daily  system 
of  hell  amid  the  most  civilized  and  Christian  people  on 
the  face  of  the  earth ! 

No,  I  confess  I  am  not  a  non-resistant.  The  reason 
why  I  advise  the  slave  to  be  guided  by  a  policy  of  peace 
is  because  he  has  no  chance.  If  he  had  one,  —  if  he  hac. 
as  good  a  chance  as  those  who  went  up  to  Lexington 


SIMS   ANNIVERSARY.  87 

seventy-seven  years  ago,  —  I  should  call  him  the  basest 
recreant  that  ever  deserted  wife  and  child  if  he  did  not 
vindicate  his  liberty  by  his  own  right  hand.  [Cheers.] 
And  I  am  not  by  any  means  certain  that  Northern  men 
would  not  be  startled  —  would  not  be  wholesomely  star 
tled —  by  one  or  two  such  cases  as  a  scoundrel  Busteed 
shot  over  his  perjured  affidavit.  If  a  Morton  or  a  Curtis 
could  be  shot  on  the  commissioner's  bench  by  the  hand 
of  him  they  sought  to  sacrifice,  I  have  no  doubt  that  it 
would  have  a  wholesome  effect.  [Great  applause.]  Is 
there  a  man  here  who  would,  if  he  had  arms  in  his 
hands,  either  himself  go  to  Georgia,  or  let  any  one  near 
and  dear  to  him  go  there,  without  sending  somebody 
before  him  to  a  lighter  and  cooler  place  than  a  Geor 
gian  plantation  ? 

I  am  not  dealing  with  the  cause  of  three  millions  of 
slaves.  I  am  not  dealing  with  the  question  of  a  great  sin 
and  wrong  existing  among  us.  I  believe  I  understand  the 
philosophy  of  reform.  I  understand  the  policy  of  waiting. 
I  know  that,  in  reforming  great  national  abuses,  we  cannot 
expect  to  be  in  haste ;  that  the  most  efficient  protection 
for  the  three  million  of  slaves  is  to  eradicate  the  prejudice 
of  the  twenty  millions  of  whites  who  stand  above  them. 
I  have  learnt  all  that.  But,  Mr.  Chairman,  the  question 
to  which  I  speak  is  a  very  different  one.  It  is  this.  "  I, 
William  Crafts,  an  independent,  isolated  individual  in  my 
self,  am  no  more  called  to  secure  the  safety  of  three  million 
of  slaves  than  you  are.  I,  William  Crafts,  have  succeeded 
in  getting  to  Boston.  I  have  reached  what  is  called  free 
territory.  It  happens  that  there  are  strong  and  sufficient 
reasons  why  I  cannot  leave  these  shores,  or  cannot  YET 
leave  them.  I  have  got  possession  of  arms.  I  have  in 
quired  of  the  most  intelligent  men,  and  they  tell  me  that 
the  laws  afford  me  no  protection.  I  have  asked  of  the 
highest  authorities  on  government  my  duty  in  this  emer- 


SIMS  ANNIVERSARY. 

gency,  and  they  tell  me,  one  and  all,  from  Grotius  down 
to  Lord  Brougham,  that  when  government  ceases  to  pro 
tect,  the  citizen  ceases  to  owe  allegiance.*  Very  well. 
My  case  stands  by  itself.  It  is  for  me  to  decide  to-night 
whether  I  will  go  back  to  Georgia  to-morrow.  It  is  no 
special  comfort  to  assure  me  that,  half  a  century  hence, 
somebody  will  go  down  to  Faneuil  Hall,  —  some  Robert 
C.  Winthrop,  perhaps,  converted  for  the  occasion,  —  and 
pronounce  an  oration  on  the  jubilee  of  American  freedom. 
It  is  no  answer  to  tell  me  that,  in  order  to  this,  it  is  con 
sidered  by  some  people  to  be  a  great  thing  that  the  fugitive 
should  go  willingly  and  quietly  back  to  slavery.  There 
comes  up  to  me  a  man  who  says  he  is  an  officer,  and  has  a 
parchment  warrant  in  his  pocket.  Somebody  has  given 
him  authority  to  seize  me.  I  am  not  to  be  bullied  by 
institutions.  I  am  not  to  be  frightened  by  parchments. 
Forms  and  theories  are  nothing  to  me.  Majorities  are 
nothing.  You  have  outlawed  me  from  your  law.  You 
have  exiled  me  from  your  protection.  I  am  a  descendant 
of  Esau,  —  every  man's  hand  against  me,  my  hand  against 
every  man.  I  have  no  time  or  means  of  escape,  no  de 
fence,  except  I  make  it.  If  I  make  it,  I  secure  the  hour 
of  liberty  and  escape.  I  decide  to  make  it.  I  shoot  the 
miscreant,  and  thus  gain  time  to  pass  from  the  spot  where 
I  was  to  have  been  arrested,  to  freedom  under  the  flag  of 
England  or  on  the  deck  of  a  vessel."  Let  him  who  fully 
knows  his  own  heart  and  strength,  and  feels,  as  he  looks 
down  into  his  child's  cradle,  that  he  could  stand  by  and 

*  "  Protection,  your  Lordships  are  aware,  affording  security  of  person  and 
property,  is  the  first  law  of  the  state.  The  Legislature  has  no  right  to  claim 
obedience  to  its  laws,  the  Crown  has  no  right  to  demand  allegiance  from  its 
subjects,  if  the  Legislature  and  the  Crown  do  not  afford,  in  return  for  both, 
protection  for  person  and  property.  Without  protection,  the  Legislature 
would  abdicate  its  functions,  if  it  demanded  obedience ;  without  protection, 
the  Crown  would  be  a  usurper  of  its  right  to  enforce  allegiance."  —  Lora 
Brougham's  Debate  on  the  Irish  Coercion  Bill,  1833. 


SIMS  ANNIVERSARY.  89 

see  that  little  nestling  one  borne  away,  and  submit,  —  let 
him  cast  the  first  stone.  But  all  you  whose  blood  is  wont 
to  stir  over  Naseby  and  Bunker  Hill  will  hold  your  peace, 
unless  you  are  ready  to  cry,  with  me,  Sic  semper  tyrannic! 
So  may  it  ever  be  with  slave-hunters  ! 

Mr.  Chairman,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  man  who  is  not  I 
conscientiously  a  non-resistant,  is  not  only  entitled,  he  is 
bound,  to  use  every  means  that  he  has  or  can  get  to  resist 
arrest  in  the  last  resort.  What  is  the  slave,  when  he  is 
once  surrendered  ?  He  goes  back  to  degradation  worse 
than  death.  If  he  has  children,  they  are  to  perpetuate 
that  degradation.  He  has  no  right  to  sacrifice  himself  or 
them  to  that  extent.  These  are  considerations  which  it  is 
just  as  well  to  state,  and  to  bring  before  the  community. 
I  know  my  friend,  Mr.  Garrison,  differs  from  me  on  this 
question.  You  will  listen  to  him.  I  shall  not  quarrel 
if  you  agree  with  his  judgment,  and  leave  me  alone.  I 
am  talking  to-night  to  the  men  who  say  they  were  ready 
to  take  up  their  muskets  in  defence  of  Thomas  Sims,  or  j 
Shadrach,  or  somebody  else.  It  is  very  well  for  fiction  /^ 
—  for  a  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  —  to  paint  a  submissive 
slave,  and  draw  a  picture  that  thrills  your  hearts.  You 
are  very  sensitive  over  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."  Your 
nerves  are  very  sensitive ;  see  that  your  consciences  are 
as  sensitive  as  your  nerves.  If  your  hearts  answered 
instead  of  your  nerves,  you  would  rise  up  every  one  of 
you  Abolitionists,  ready  to  sacrifice  everything  rather 
than  a  man  should  go  back  to  slavery.  Let  me  see  that 
effect,  and  then  I  will  reckon  the  value  of  the  tears  that 
have  answered  to  the  wand  of  this  magician  ;  but  till 
then,  they  are  but  the  tears  of  a  nervous  reader  under 
high  excitement.  Would  those  tears  could  crystallize  into 
sentiment,  crystallize  into  principle,  —  into  Christian  prin 
ciple,  out  of  which  the  weapon  of  antislavery  patience  and 
perseverance  and  self-sacrifice  is  to  be  wrought!  Guard 


90  SIMS   ANNIVERSARY. 

yourselves,  friends,  against  the  delusive  idea,  that  the 
tears  and  sad  eyes  you  see  about  you  are  harbingers  of  a 
better  hour  for  Massachusetts  than  this  day  twelve  months 
saw  darken  over  her  fame.  It  may  be  so  ;  but  there  is 
no  certainty  that  it  will.  We  are  to  speak  to  practical 
Massachusetts.  I  do  not  shrink  from  going  before  the 
farmers,  the  mechanics,  and  the  workingmen,  —  the 
thinking  men  of  Massachusetts,  —  and  urging  upon  them 
the  consideration  that  the  State,  by  solemn  act,  has 
proclaimed  to  every  one  that  her  soil  is  not  holy  enough 
to  protect  the  fugitive,  and  that,  so  far  as  she  is  concerned, 
the  only  thing  left,  the  only  possibility,  the  only  chance 
remaining  for  the  fugitive,  lies  in  his  own  courage  and 
good  right  arm.  The  city  of  John  Hancock  has  proved 
that,  her  soil  is  not  holy  enough  to  protect  the  fugitive  ; 
Faneuil  Hall,  where  "  still  the  eloquent  air  breathes, 
burns,"  wifh  Otis  and  Adams,  is  not  holy  enough  to 
shelter  the  fugitive ;  Bunker  Hill,  red  with  the  blood 
of  the  noblest  men  who  ever  fell  in  the  cause  of  civil 
liberty,  is  not  too  sacred  for  fettered  feet ;  the  churches, 
planted,  as  we  have  been  told  to-day,  in  tears,  in  prayers, 
and  in  blood,  have  no  altar-horns  for  the  fugitive  ;  the 
courts,  even  that  which  first  naturalized  Lord  Mansfield's 
decision,  drawing  a  nice  distinction  between  slaves  brought 
and  slaves  escaping,  — judges  loving  humanity  so  well, 
even  in  the  humblest  suitor,  that,  like  their  noble  pre 
decessors  in  the  great  case  of  DeVere,  they  "  caught 
hold  of  a  twig  or  a  twine  thread  to  uphold  it  "  ;  —  that, 
too,  has  shut  its  doors  on  the  fugitive, — yes,  against 
that  very  child  Med,  should  she  again  be  seized,  in  whose 
behalf  they  settled  this  proud  rule.  I  would  say  all  this 
to  the  men  about  me,  and  add,  —  There  is  one  gleam 
of  hope.  It  is  just  possible  that  the  floor  of  the  State's 
prison  may  have  a  magic  charm  in  it.  That  may  save 
the  fugitive,  if  he  can  once  entitle  himself  to  a  place 


SIMS   ANNIVERSARY.  91 

there.  When,  therefore,  the  occasion  shall  demand,  let 
us  try  it !  [Great  cheering.]  It  is  a  sad  thought,  that 
the  possibility  of  a  gibbet,  the  chance  of  imprisonment 
for  life,  is  the  only  chance  which  can  make  it  prudent  for 
a  fugitive  to  remain  in  Massachusetts. 

You  will  say  this  is  bloody  doctrine,  —  anarchical  doc 
trine  ;  it  will  prejudice  people  against  the  cause.  I  know 
it  will.  Heaven  pardon  those  who  make  it  necessary  ! 
Heaven  pardon  the  judges,  ,the  merchants,  and  the  clergy, 
who  make  it  necessary  for  hunted  men  to  turn,  when 
they  are  at  bay,  and  fly  at  the  necks  of  their  pursuers  ! 
It  is  not  our  fault !  I  shrink  from  no  question,  however 
desperate,  that  has  in  it  the  kernel  of  possible  safety 
for  a  human  being  hunted  by  twenty  millions  of  slave- 
catchers  in  this  Christian  republic  of  ours.  [Cheers.] 
I  am  willing  to  confess  my  faith.  It  is  this  :  that  the 
Christianity  of  this  country  is  worth  nothing,  except  it 
is  or  can  be  made  capable  of  dealing  with  the  question 
of  slavery.  I  am  willing  to  confess  another  article  of 
my  faith  :  that  the  Constitution  and  government  of  this 
country  is  worth  nothing,  except  it  is  or  can  be  made 
capable  of  grappling  with  the  great  question  of  slavery. 
I  agree  with  Burke  :  "  1  have  no  idea  of  a  liberty  un 
connected  with  honesty  and  justice.  Nor  do  I  believe  that 
any  good  constitutions  of  government  or  of  freedom  can 
find  it  necessary  for  their  security  to  doom  any  part  of  the 
people  to  a  permanent  slavery.  Such  a  constitution  of 
freedom,  if  such  can  be,  is  in  effect  no  more  than  another 
name  for  the  tyranny  of  the  strongest  faction  ;  and  factions 
in  republics  have  been  and  are  full  as  capable  as  monarchs 
of  the  most  cruel  oppression  and  injustice."  That  is  the 
language  of  Edmund  Burke  to  the  electors  of  Bristol; 
I  agree  with  it !  [Applause.]  The  greatest  praise  gov 
ernment  can  win  is,  that  its  citizens  know  their  rights, 
and  dare  to  maintain  them.  The  best  use  of  good  laws 
is  to  teach  men  to  trample  bad  laws  under  their  feet. 


02  SIMS  ANNIVERSARY. 

On  these  principles,  I  am  willing  to  stand  before  the 
community  in  which  I  was  born  and  brought  up,  —  where 
I  expect  to  live  and  die,  —  where,  if  I  shall  ever  win  any 
reputation,  I  expect  to  earn  and  to  keep  it.  As  a  sane 
man,  a  Christian  man,  and  a  lover  of  my  country,  I  am 
willing  to  be  judged  by  posterity,  if  it  shall  ever  remember 
either  this  meeting  or  the  counsels  which  were  given  in 
its  course.  I  am  willing  to  stand  upon  this  advice  to  the 
fugitive  slave  — baffled  in  every  effort  to  escape,  or  bound 
here  by  sufficient  ties,  exiled  from  the  protection  of  the 
law,  shut  out  from  the  churches  —  to  PROTECT  HIMSELF, 
and  make  one  last  appeal  to  the  humane  instincts  of  his 
fellow-men.  Friends,  it  is  time  something  should  be  said 
on  these  points.  Twenty-six  cases  —  twenty-six  slave 
cases,  under  this  last  statute,  have  taken  place  in  the 
single  State  of  Pennsylvania.  I  do  not  believe  one  man 
in  a  hundred  who  hears  me  supposed  there  were  half  a 
dozen  cases  there.  So  silently,  so  much  a  matter  of 
course,  so  much  without  any  public  excitement,  have 
those  slaves  been  surrendered  !  Should  the  record  be 
made  up  for  the  other  States,  it  would  probably  be  in 
proportion.  Recollect,  beside,  the  cases  of  kidnapping, 
not  by  any  means  unfrequent,  which  are  so  much  facil 
itated  by  the  existence  of  laws  like  this.  For  slaves  to 
stay  among  us  and  be  surrendered  may  excite  commiser 
ation  ;  but  remember,  and  this  is  a  very  important  con 
sideration,  familiarity  with  such  scenes  begets  indifference  ; 
the  tone  of  public  sentiment  is  lowered;  soon  cases  pass 
as  matters  of  course,  and  the  community,  burnt  over  with 
previous  excitement,  is  doubly  steeled  against  all  active 
sympathy  with  the  sufferers.  What  was  usurpation  yes 
terday  is  precedent  to-morrow.  When  we  asked  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts  to  interfere  in  Sims's 
behalf,  on  the  ground  that  the  law  of  1850  was  uncon 
stitutional,  they  declined,  because  the  law  was  much  the 


SIMS  ANNIVERSARY.  93 

same  as  that  of  1793,  arc!  that  was  constitutional,  because 
so  HELD  and  SUBMITTED  TO.  Surely,  tyranny  should  have 
no  such  second  acquiescence  to  plead.  Yet  that  public 
feeling,  so  alert,  so  indignant  at  the  outset,  already  droops 
and  grows  cold.  Government  stands  ever  a  united,  pow 
erful,  and  organized  body,  always  in  session,  its  tempta 
tions  creeping  over  the  dulled  senses,  the  wearied  zeal,  or 
the  hour  of  want.  The  sympathies  of  a  people  for  the 
down-trodden  and  the  weak  are  scattered,  evanescent, 
now  excited,  now  asleep.  The  assembly  which  is  red-hot 
to-day  has  vanished  to-morrow.  The  indignation  that 
lowers  around  a  court-house  in  chains  is  scattered  in  a 
month.  The  guerilla  troops  of  reform  are  now  here,  and 
now  crumbled  away.  On  the  other  hand,  permanently 
planted,  with  a  boundless  patronage,  which  sways  every 
thing,  stands  government,  with  hands  ever  open,  and 
eyes  that  never  close,  biding  cunningly  its  time  ;  always 
concentrated  ;  and,  of  course,  too  often  able  to  work  its 
will,  for  a  time,  against  any  amount  of  popular  indignation 
or  sympathy. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me.  I  know  the  antislavery 
cause  will  triumph.  The  mightiest  intellects,  the  Web- 
sters  and  the  Calhoiins  of  the  Whig  and  Democratic 
parties,  —  they  have  no  more  effect  upon  the  great  mass 
of  the  public  mind,  in  the  long  run,  than  the  fly's  weight 
had  on  the  chariot-wheel  where  he  lighted.  But  that  is 
a  long  battle.  I  am  speaking  now  of  death  or  life,  to  be 
dealt  out  in  a  moment.  I  am  dealing  with  a  family  about 
to  be  separated,  standing,  as  many  of  you  have  been  called 
again  and  again  to  do,  by  the  hearth,  or  at  the  table, 
where  that  family  circle  were  never  to  assemble  again  ; 
broken  and  scattered  to  the  four  winds ;  the  wife  in 
agony,  her  husband  torn  from  her  side,  her  children 
gathering  around,  vainly  asking,  "  Where  are  we  to  go, 
mother  ? "  Open  those  doors  !  How  many  of  them 


94  SIMS  ANNIVERSARY. 

might  you  open  in  these  Northern  States  within  the  last 
two  years !  How  many  of  these  utterly  indescribable 
scenes  might  you  have  witnessed  within  that  brief  period  I 
This  law  has  executed  itself.  Twenty-six  have  been  sent 
back  from  Pennsylvania ;  only  one  from  Boston ;  only  a 
dozen,  perhaps,  from  New  York.  Yes  ;  but,  in  the  mean 
time,  the  dread  that  they  might  be  seized  has  broken  up 
h  dreds  of  happy  families.  It  has  been  executed  :  and 
when  I  remember  that  Northern  traitor  who  made  its 
enactment  possible,  I  sometimes  think  that  the  vainest 
man  who  ever  lived  never  dreamed,  in  the  hour  of  his 
fondest  self-conceit,  that  he  had  done  the  human  race  as 
much  good  as  Daniel  Webster  has  wrought  it  sorrow  and 
despair.  [Great  applause.]  I  do  not  think  you  fully 
appreciate  the  state  of  dread  in  which  the  colored  popula 
tion  has  lived  for  months. 

Mark,  too,  the  infamous  characteristics  of  these  cases ! 
It  is  not  their  frequency,  after  all,  that  should  cause  the 
most  apprehension,  but  the  objectional  incidents  and  very 
dangerous  precedents  they  establish.  It  is  not  that  the 
slave  act  is  law.  That  is  not  half  the  enormity  of  the 
fact.  It  is,  that  not  only  is  the  slave  statute  held  to  be 
law,  but  that  there  is  really  no  law'  beside  it  in  the  Free 
States,  —  to  execute  it,  all  other  laws  are  set  aside  and 
disregarded.  The  commonest  and  best  settled  principles 
have  been  trodden  under  foot.  Almost  all  these  persons 
have  been  arrested  by  a  lie.  Sims  was,  —  Long  was,  — 
Preston  was.  In  the  case  at  Buffalo,  the  man  was  ar 
rested  by  a  bloodthirsty  attack,  —  knocked  down  in  the 
streets.  The  atrocious  haste,  the  brutal  haste  of  Judge 
Kane,  in  the  case  of  Hannah  Kellam,  language  fails  in 
describing,  —  indignation  stands  dumb  before  the  cold  and 
brutal  wickedness.  Many  of  these  cases  have  been  a 
perversion,  not  only  of  all  justice,  but  of  all  law.  Take  a 
single  and  slight  instance.  The  merciful  and  safe  rule 


SIMS  ANNIVERSARY.  95 

lias  always  been,  that  an  officer,  arresting  any  one  wrong 
fully,  shall  not  be  permitted  to  avail  himself  of  his  illegal 
act  for  the  service  of  a  true  warrant  while  he  has  the  man 
in  custody.  This  would  be  not  only  a  sanction,  but  an 
encouragement,  of  illegal  detention.  But,  in  several  of 
these  cases,  the  man  has  been  seized  on  some  false  pre 
tence,  known  to  be  a  sham,  and  then  the  authorities  al 
lowed  those  having  him  in  custody  to  waive  the  prosecu 
tion  of  the  pretended  claim,  and  serve  upon  him  the  real 
warrant.  The  same  disgraceful  proceeding  was  allowed 
in  the  Latimer  case  in  this  city,  his  master  arresting  him 
as  a  thief,  and  afterwards  dismissing  that  process,  and 
claiming  him  as  a  slave.  This  dangerous  precedent  has 
been  followed  in  many  of  these  late  cases.  The  spirit  of 
the  rule,  and  in  some  cases  its  letter,  would  have  set  the 
prisoner  free,  and  held  void  all  the  proceedings. 

Amid  this  entire  overthrow  of  legal  safeguards,  this 
utter  recklessness  of  all  the  checks  which  the  experience 
of  ages  has  invented  for  the  control  of  the  powerful  and 
the  protection  of  the  weak,  it  is  idle  to  dream  of  any  col 
ored  person's  being  safe.  They  stand  alone,  exposed  to  the 
whole  pelting  of  this  pitiless  storm.  I  wish  there  existed 
here  any  feeling  on  this  subject  adequate  to  the  crisis. 
Is  there  such  ?  Do  you  point  me  to  the  past  triumphs 
of  the  antislavery  sentiment  of  Massachusetts  ?  The  list 
is  short,  we  know  it  by  heart.  Yes,  there  has  been 
enough  of  feeling  and  effort  to  send  Charles  Sumner  to 
the  Senate.  Let  us  still  believe  that  the  event  will  justify 
us  in  trusting  him,  spite  of  his  silence  there  for  four  long 
months,  —  silence  when  so  many  ears  have  been  waiting 
for  the  promised  words.  There  is  an  antislavery  senti 
ment  here  of  a  certain  kind.  Test  it,  and  let  us  see  what 
it  is  worth.  There  is  antislavery  sentiment  enough  to 
crowd  our  Legislature  with  Free-Soilers.  True.  Let  us 
wait  for  some  fruit,  correspondent  to  their  pledges,  before 
we  rejoice  too  loudly,  Heaven  £rant  us  the  sight  o^ 


.96  SIMS   ANNIVERSARY. 

some  before  we  be  forced  to  borrow  from  our  fathers  a 
name  for  these  legislative  committees  of  Free-Soilers.  In 
1765  there  were  certain  Parliamentary  committees,  to 
whom  were  referred  the  petitions  of  the  Colonists,  and 
many  good  plans  of  relief,  and  that  was  the  last  heard 
of  either  petition  or  plan.  Our  fathers  called  them 
"  committees  of  oblivion."  I  hope  we  may  never  need 
that  title  again  ;  and  wherever  we  find  the  untarnished 
name  of  Sewall,  we  need  have  no  apprehension. 

Yes,  there  is  antislavery  sentiment  sufficient  to  put 
many  persons  on  their  good  behavior,  —  sufficient  to 
bring  Orville  Dewey  to  his  knees,  and  make  him  at 
tempt  to  lie  himself  out  of  a  late  delicate  embarrassment. 
[Great  applause.]  That,  to  be  sure,  is  the  only  way  for 
a  true-bred  American  to  apologize  !  Some  men  blame  us 
for  the  personality  of  our  attacks,  —  for  the  bad  taste  of 
actually  naming  a  sinner  on  such  a  platform  as  this. 
Never  doubt  its  benefits  again.  Did  not  the  reverend 
doctor  "  go  to  and  fro  in  the  earth,  and  walk  up  and 
down  in  it,"  offering  to  return  his  own  mother  into 
slavery  for  our  dear  Union  ;  and  was  he  not  rewarded 
by  our  national  government  with  a  chaplaincy  in  the  na 
vy, —  as  most  men  thought  to  secure  him  a  trip  to  the 
Mediterranean,  and  repose  his  wearied  virtue  ?  Where 
could  public  rumor  more  appropriately  send  him  than  to 
that  very  spot  on  the  Naples  coast,  where  his  great  and 
only  exemplar,  Nero,  devoted  his  mother  to  a  kinder  fate 
than  this  Christian  imitator  designed  for  a  "  venerable 
relative  "  !  Could  he  have  passed  his  life  at  Bauli,  the 
genius  of  the  place  would  have  protected  her  well-deserving 
son,  and  all  had  been  well.  But  here  a  certain  "  rub- 
a-dub  agitation  "  had  done  so  much  mischief,  that  even 
the  Unitarian  denomination  could  not  uphold  its  eminent 
leader  till  he  had  explained  that  he  did  not  mean  his  "  ven 
erable  relative,"  he  only  meant  his  son !  How  clear  the 
lesson  to  that  son  not  to  treat  others  as  thev  treat  him,  — 


SIMS   ANNIVERSARY.  97 

since  then  lie  might  be  led  t"  do  what  even  his  father 
deems  inhuman,  namely,  return  iiis  "  venerable  relative  " 
into  slavery  to  save  a  Union  !  Does  Dr.  Dewey  indeed 
think  it  "  extravagant  and  ridiculous  to  consent  "  to  re 
turn  one's  mother  to  slavery  ?  On  what  principle,  then, 
it  has  been  well  asked,  does  he  demand  that  every  colored 
son  submit  patiently  to  have  it  done  ?  Does  his  Bible 
read  that  God  did  not  make  of  one  blood  all  nations  ? 

Yes,  we  have  antislavery  feeling  and  character  enough 
to  humble  a  Dewey ;  we  want  more,  —  want  enough  to 
save  a  Sims,  —  to  give  safe  shelter  to  Ellen  Crafts.  "Hide 
the  outcast,  bewray  not  him  that  wandereth,"  is  the 
simplest  lesson  of  common  humanity.  The  Common 
wealth,  which,  planted  by  exiles,  proclaimed  by  statute 
in  1641  her  welcome  to  "  any  stranger  who  might  fly  to 
her  from  the  tyranny  or  oppression  of  their  persecutors,"  — 
the  State  which  now  seeks  "  PEACE  IN  LIBERTY,"  should 
not  content  herself  with  this :  her  rebuke  of  the  tyrant, 
her  voice  of  welcome  to  the  oppressed,  should  be  uttered 
so  loud  as  to  be  heard  throughout  the  South.  It  should 
not  be  necessary  to  hide  the  outcast.  It  ought  not  to  be 
counted  merit  now  that  one  does  not  lift  hand  against 
him.  O  no  !  fidelity  to  ancient  fame,  to  present  honor, 
to  duty,  to  God,  demands  that  the  fugitive  from  the  op 
pressions  of  other  lands  should  be  able  to  go  up  and  down 
our  highway  in  peace,  —  tell  his  true  name,  meet  his 
old  oppressor  face  to  face,  and  feel  that  a  whole  Common 
wealth  stands  between  him  and  all  chance  of  harm. 

"  Cf-od  save  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts !  " 
How  coldly,  often,  does  the  old  prayer  fall  from  careless 
lips !  How  sure  to  reach  the  ear  of  Him,  who  heareth 
the  sighing  of  the  prisoner,  when  it  shall  rise,  in  ecstasy 
of  gratitude,  from  the  slave-hut  of  the  Carolinas,  or  from 
the  bursting  heart  of  the  fugitive,  who,  after  deadly  peril, 
rests  at  last  beneath  the  shadow  of  her  protection  I 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.1 


MR.  CHAIRMAN  :  I  have  to  present,  from  the  busi 
ness  committee,  the  following  resolution  :  — 

"Resolved,  That  the  ohject  of  this  society  is  now,  as  it  has 
always  been,  to  convince  our  countrymen,  by  arguments  ad 
dressed  to  their  hearts  and  consciences,  that  slaveholding  is  a 
heinous  crime,  and  that  the  duty,  safety,  and  interest  of  all 
concerned  demand  its  immediate  abolition,  without  expatria 
tion." 

I  wish,  Mr.  Chairman,  to  notice  some  objections  that 
have  been  made  to  our  course  ever  since  Mr.  Garrison 
began  his  career,  and  which  have  been  lately  urged  again, 
with  considerable  force  •  and  emphasis,  in  the  columns  of 
the  London  Leader,  the  able  organ  of  a  very  respectable 
and  influential  class  in  England.  I  hope,  Sir,  you  will 
not  think  it  waste  of  time  to  bring  such  a  subject  before 
you.  I  know  these  objections  have  been  made  a  thousand 
times,  that  they  have  been  often  answered,  though  we 
generally  submitted  to  them  in  silence,  willing  to  let 
results  speak  for  us.  But  there  are  times  when  justice 
to  the  slave  will  not  allow  us  to  be  silent.  There  are 
many  in  this  country,  many  in  England,  who  have  had 
their  attention  turned,  recently,  to  the  antislavery  cause. 
They  are  asking,  "Which  is  the  best  and  most  efficient 

*  Speech  before  the  Massachusetts  Antislavery  Society,  at  the  Melodeon, 
Boston,  January  27,  1853. 


PHILOSOPHY    OF   THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  99 

method  of  helping  it  ?  "  Engaged  ourselves  in  an  effort 
for  the  slave,  which  time  has  tested  and  success  hitherto 
approved,  we  are  very  properly  desirous  that  they  should 
join  us  in  our  labors,  and  pour  into  this  channel  the  full 
tide  of  their  new  zeal  and  great  resources.  Thoroughly 
convinced  ourselves  that  our  course  is  wise*  we  can  hon 
estly  urge  others  to  adopt  it.  Long  experience  gives  us  a 
right  to  advise.  The  fact  that  our  course,  more  than  all 
other  efforts,  has  caused  that  agitation  which  has  awakened 
these  new  converts,  gives  us  a  right  to  counsel  them. 
They  are  our  spiritual  children  :  for  their  sakes,  we  would 
free  the  cause  we  love  and  trust  from  every  seeming  de 
fect  and  plausible  objection.  For  the  slave's  sake,  we  reit 
erate  our  explanations,  that  he  may  lose  no  tittle  of  help 
by  the  mistakes  or  misconceptions  of  his  friends. 

All  that  I  have  to  say  on  these  points  will  be  to  you, 
Mr.  Chairman,  very  trite  and  familiar  ;  but  the  facts  may 
be  new  to  some,  and  I  prefer  to  state  them  here,  in  Bos 
ton,  where  we  have  lived  and  worked,  because,  if'  our 
statements  are  incorrect,  if  we  claim  too  much,  our  asser 
tions  can  be  easily  answered  and  disproved. 

The  charges  to  which  I  refer  are  these  :  that,  in  deal 
ing  with  slaveholders  and  their  apologists,  we  indulge  in 
fierce  denunciations,  instead  of  appealing  to  their  reason 
and  common  sense  by  plain  statements  and  fair  argument ; 
—  that  we  might  have  won  the  sympathies  and  support  of 
the  nation,  if  we  would  have  submitted  to  argue  this  ques 
tion  with  a  manly  patience  ;  but,  instead  of  this,  we  have 
outraged  the  feelings  of  the  community  by  attacks,  unjust 
and  unnecessarily  severe,  on  its  most  valued  institutions, 
and  gratified  our  spleen  by  indiscriminate  abuse  of  leading 
men,  who  were  often  honest  in  their  intentions,  however 
mistaken  in  their  views  ;  —  that  we  have  utterly  neglected 
the  ample  means  that  lay  around  us  to  convert  the  nation, 
submitted  to  no  discipline,  formed  no  plan,  been  guided  by 


100  THE   PHILOSOPHY    OF 

no  foresight,  but  hurried  on  in  childish,  reckless,  blind,  and 
hot-headed  zeal,  —  bigots  in  the  narrowness  of  our  views, 
and  fanatics  in  our  blind  fury  of  invective  and  malignant 
judgment  of  other  men's  motives. 

There  are  some  who  come  upon  our  platform,  and  give 
us  the  aid  of  names  and  reputations  less  burdened  than 
ours  with  popular  odium,  who  are  perpetually  urging  us  to 
exercise  chanty  in  our  judgments  of  those  about  us,  and  to 
consent  to  argue  these  questions.  These  men  are  ever 
parading  their  wish  to  draw  a  line  between  themselves  and 
us,  because  they  must  be  permitted  to  wait,  —  to  trust  more 
to  reason  than  feeling,  —  to  indulge  a  generous  charity,  — 
to  rely  on  the  sure  influence  of  simple  truth,  uttered  in 
love,  &c.,  &c.  I  reject  with  scorn  all  these  implications 
that  our  judgments  are  uncharitable,  —  that  we  are  lacking 
in  patience,  —  that  we  have  any  other  dependence  than  on 
the  simple  truth,  spoken  with  Christian  frankness,  yet  with 
Christian  love.  These  lectures,  to  which  you,  Sir,  and  all 
of  us,  have  so  often  listened,  would  be  impertinent,  if  they 
were  not  rather  ridiculous  for  the  gross  ignorance  they 
betray  of  the  community,  of  the  cause,  and  of  the  whole 
course  of  its  friends. 

The  article  in  the  Leader  to  which  I  refer  is  signed 
"  ION,"  and  may  be  found  in  the  Liberator  of  December 
17, 1852.  The  writer  is  cordial  and  generous  in  his  recogr- 
nition  of  Mr.  Garrison's  claim-  to  be  the  representative  of 
the  antislavery  movement,  and  does  entire  justice  to  his 
motives  and  character.  The  criticisms  of  "  Ion  "  were 
reprinted  in  the  Christian  Register,  of  this  city,  the  organ 
of  the  Unitarian  denomination.  The  editors  of  that  paper, 
with  their  usual  Christian  courtesy,  love  of  truth,  and  fair- 
dealing,  omitted  all  "Ion's"  expressions  of  regard  for  Mr. 
Garrison  and  appreciation  of  his  motives,  and  reprinted 
only  those  parts  of  the  article  which  undervalue  his  saga 
city  .and  influence,  and  indorse  the  common  objections  to 


THE   ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  101 

his  method  and  views.  You  will  see  in  a  moment,  Mr. 
President,  that  it  is  with  such  men  and  presses  "  Ion  " 
thinks  Mr.  Garrison  has  not  been  sufficiently  wise  and 
patient,  in  trying  to  win  their  help  for  the  antislavery 
cause.  Perhaps,  were  he  on  the  spot,  it  would  tire  even 
his  patience,  and  puzzle  even  his  sagacity,  to  make  any 
other  use  of  them  than  that  of  the  drunken  Helot,  —  a 
warning  to  others  how  disgusting  is  mean  vice.  Perhaps, 
were  he  here,  he  would  see  that  the  best  and  only  use  to 
be  made  of  them  is  to  let  them  unfold  their  own  charac 
ters,  and  then  show  the  world  how  rotten  our  politics  and 
religion  are,  that  they  naturally  bear  such  fruit.  "  Ion  " 
quotes  Mr.  Garrison's  original  declaration,  in  the  Liber 
ator  :  — • 

"  I  am  aware  that  many  object  to  the  severity  of  my  language ; 
but  is  there  not  cause  for  severity  ?  I  will  be  as  harsh  as  truth, 
and  as  uncompromising  as  justice. .  I  am  in  earnest,  —  I  will  not 
equivocate,  —  I  will  not  excuse,  —  I  will  not  retreat  a  single 

inch, AND    I    WILL    BE    HEARD. 

"  It  is  pretended  that  I  am  retarding  the  cause  of  emancipation 
by  the  coarseness  of  my  invective  and  the  precipitancy  of  my 
measures.  The  charge  is  not  true.  On  this  question,  my  influ 
ence,  humble  as  it  is,  is  felt  at  this  moment  to  a  considerable 
extent,  and  shall  be  felt  in  coming  years,  —  not  perniciously,  but 
beneficially,  —  not  as  a  curse,  but  as  a  blessing ;  and  posterity 
will  bear  testimony  that  I  was  right.  I  desire  to  thank  God  that 
he  enables  me  to  disregard  *  the  fear  of  man,  which  bringeth  a 
snare,'  and  to  speak  his  truth  in  its  simplicity  and  power." 

"  Ion  "  then  goes  on  to  say  :  — 

"  This  is  a  defence  which  has  been  generally  accepted  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  many  are  the  Abolitionists  among  us 
whom  it  has  encouraged  in  honesty  and  impotence,  and  whom  it 
has  converted  into  conscientious  hinderances 

"  We  would  have  Mr.  Garrison  to  say,  '  I  will  be  as  harsh  as 
progress,  as  uncompromising  as  success.'  If  a  man  speaks  for  his 
own  gratification,  he  may  be  as  '  harsh '  as  he  pleases ;  but  if  he 


102  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF 

speaks  for  the  down-trodden  and  oppressed,  lie  must  be  content 
to  put  a  curb  upon  the  tongue  of  holiest  passion,  and  speak  only 
as  harshly  as  is  compatible  with  the  amelioration  of  the  evil  he 
proposes  to  redress.  Let  the  question  be  again  repeated:  Do 
you  seek  for  the  slave  vengeance  or  redress  ?  If  you  seek  retali 
ation,  go  on  denouncing.  But  distant  Europe  honors  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  because  it  credits  him  with  seeking  for  the  slave 
simply  redress.  We  say,  therefore,  that '  uncompromising '  policy 
is  not  to  be  measured  by  absolute  justice,  but  by  practical  ameli 
oration  of  the  slave's  condition.  Amelioration  as  fast  as  you  can 
get  it,  —  absolute  justice  as  soon  as  you  can  reach  it." 

He  quotes  the  sentiment  of  Confucius,  that  he  would 
choose  for  a  leader  "  a  man  who  would  maintain  a  steady 
vigilance  in  the  direction  of  affairs,  who  was  capable  of 
forming  plans,  and  of  executing  them,'*  and  says :  — 

"  The  philosopher  was  right  in  placing  wisdom  and  executive 
capacity  above  courage ;  for,  down  to  this  day,  our  popular  move 
ments  are  led  by  heroes  who  fear  nothing,  and  who  win  noth 
ing 

"  There  is  no  question  raised  in  these  articles  as  to  the  work 
to  be  done,  but  only  as  to  the  mode  of  really  doing  it.  The  plat 
form  resounds  with  announcements  of  principle,  which  is  but 
asserting  the  right,  while  nothing  but  contempt  is  showered  on 
policy,  which  is  the  realization  of  right.  The  air  is  filled  with 
all  high  cries  and  spirited  denunciations  ;  indignation  is  at  a  pre 
mium;  and  this  is  called  advocacy But  to  calculate, 

to  make  sure  of  your  aim,  is  to  be  descried  as  one  who  is  too  cold 
to  feel,  too  genteel  to  strike." 

Further  on,  he  observes  :  — 

"  If  an  artillery  officer  throws  shell  after  shell  which  never 
reach  the  enemy,  he  is  replaced  by  some  one  with  a  better  eye 
and  a  surer  aim.  But  in  the  artillery  battle  of  opinion,  to  mean 
to  hit  is  quite  sufficient ;  and  if  you  have  a  certain  grand  indiffer 
ence  as  to  whether  you  hit  or  not,  you  may  count  on  public  ap 
plause 

"  A  man  need  be  no  less  militant,  as  the  soldier  of  facts,  than 


THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  103 

as  the  agent  of  swords,  But  the  arena  of  argument  needs  dis 
cipline,  no  less  than  that  of  arms.  It  is  this  which  the  anti- 
slavery  party  seem  to  me  not  only  to  overlook,  but  to  despise. 
They  do  not  put  their  valor  to  drill.  Neither  on  the  field  nor 
the  platform  has  courage  any  inherent  capacity  of  taking  care 
of  itself." 

The  writer  then  proceeds  to  make  a  quotation  from  Mr. 
Emerson,  the  latter  part  of  which  I  will  read  :  — 

"  Let  us  withhold  every  reproachful,  and,  if  we  can,  every 
indignant  remark.  In  this  cause,  we  must  renounce  our  temper, 
and  the  risings  of  pride.  If  there  be  any  man  who  thinks  the 
ruin  of  a  race  of  men  a  small  matter  compared  with  the  last 
decorations  and  completions  of  his  own  comfort,  —  who  would 
not  so  much  as  part  with  his  ice-cream  to  save  them  from  rapine 
and  manacles,  —  I  think  I  must  not  hesitate  to  satisfy  that  man 
that  also  his  cream  and  vanilla  are  safer  and  cheaper  by  placing 
the  negro  nation  on  a  fair  footing,  than  by  robbing  them.  If  the 
Virginian  piques  himself  on  the  picturesque  luxury  of  his  vas 
salage,  on  the  heavy  Ethiopian  manners  of  his  house-servants, 
their  silent  obedience,  their  hue  of  bronze,  their  turbaned  heads, 
and  would  not  exchange  them  for  the  more  intelligent  but  pre 
carious  hired  services  of  whites,  I  shall  not  refuse  to  show  him 
that,  when  their  free  papers  are  made  out,  it  will  still  be  their 
interest  to  remain  on  his  estates  ;  and  that  the  oldest  planters 
of  Jamaica  are  convinced  that  it  is  cheaper  to  pay  wages  than 
to  own  slaves." 

The  critic  takes  exception  to  Mr.  Garrison's  approval  of 
the  denunciatory  language  in  which  Daniel  O'Connell 
rebuked  the  giant  sin  of  America,  and  concludes  his  article 
with  this  sentence  :  — 

"  When  William  Lloyd  Garrison  praises  the  great  Celtic 
monarch  of  invective  for  this  dire  outpouring,  he  acts  the  part 
of  the  boy  who  fancies  that  the  terror  is  in  the  war-whoop  of  the 
savage,  unmindful  of  the  quieter  muskets  of  the  civilized  infantry, 
whose  unostentatious  execution  blows  whoop  and  tomahawk  to 
the  Devil." 


104  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF 

Before  passing  to  a  consideration  of  these  remarks  of 
"  Ion,"  let  me  say  a  word  in  relation  to  Mr.  Emerson.  I 
do  not  consider  him  as  indorsing  any  of  these  criticisms 
on  the  Abolitionists.  His  services  to  the  most  radical 
antislavery  movement  have  been  generous  and  marked. 
He  has  never  shrunk  from  any  odium  which  lending  his 
name  and  voice  to  it  would  incur.  Making  fair  allowance 
for  his  peculiar  taste,  habits,  and  genius,  he  has  given  a 
generous  amount  of  aid  to  the  antislavery  movement,  and 
never  let  its  friends  want  his  cordial  "  God-speed." 

"  Ion's  "  charges  are  the  old  ones,  that  we  Abolitionists 
are  hurting  our  own  cause,  —  that,  instead  of  waiting  for 
the  community  to  come  up  to  our  views,  and  endeavoring 
to  remove  prejudice  and  enlighten  ignorance  by  patient 
explanation  and  fair  argument,  we  fall  at  once,  like  chil 
dren,  to  abusing  everything  and  everybody,  —  that  we 
imagine  zeal  will  supply  the  place  of  common  sense,_-r- 
that  we  have  never  shown  any  sagacity  in  adapting  our 
means  to  our  ends,  have  never  studied  the  national  char 
acter,  or  attempted  to  make  use  of  the  materials  which  lay 
all  about  us  to  influence  public  opinion,  but  by  blind, 
childish,  obstinate  fury  and  indiscriminate  denunciation, 
have  become  "  honestly  impotent,  and  conscientious 
hinderances." 

These,  Sir,  are  the  charges  which  have  uniformly  been 
brought  against  all  reformers  in  all  ages.  "  Ion  "  thinks 
the  same  faults  are  chargeable  on  the  leaders  of  all  the 
"  popular  movements  "  in  England,  which,  he  says,  "  are 
led  by  heroes  who  fear  nothing  and  who  win  nothing." 
If  the  leaders  of  popular  movements  in  Great  Britain  for 
the  last  fifty  years  have  been  losers,  I  should  be  curious  to 
kpow  what  party,  in  "  Ion's  "  opinion,  have  won  ?  My 
Lord  Derby  and  his  friends  seem  to  think  Democracy  has 
made,  and  is  making,  dangerous  headway.  If  the  men 
who,  by  popular  agitation,  outside  of  Parliament,  wrung 


THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  105 

From  a  powerful  oligarchy  Parliamentary  Reform,  and  the 
Abolition  of  the  Test  Acts,  of  High  Post  Rates,  of  Catholic 
Disability,  of  Negro  Slavery  and  the  Corn  Laws,  did  "  not 
win  anything,"  it  would  be  hard  to  say  what  winning  is. 
If  the  men  who,  without  the  ballot,  made  Peel  their  tool 
and  conquered  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  are  considered 
unsuccessful,  pray  what  kind  of  a  thing  would  success  be  ? 
Those  who  now,  at  the  head  of  that  same  middle  class, 
demand  the  separation  of  Church  and  State,  and  the 
Extension  of  the  Ballot,  may  well  guess,  from  the  fluttering 
of  Whig  and  Tory  dove-cotes,  that  soon  they  will  "  win  " 
that  same  "nothing."  Heaven  grant  they  may  enjoy  the 
same  ill  success  with  their  predecessors  !  On  our  side  of 
the  ocean,  too,  we  ought  deeply  to  sympathize  with  the 
leaders  of  the  temperance  movement  in  their  entire  want 
of  success  !  If  "  Ion's  "  mistakes  about  the  antislavery 
cause  lay  as  much  on  the  surface  as  those  I  have  just 
noticed,  it  would  be  hardly  worth  while  to  reply  to  him  ; 
for  as  to  these,  he  certainly  exhibits  only  "  the  extent  and 
variety  of  his  misinformation." 

His  remarks  upon  the  antislavery  movement  are,  how 
ever,  equally  inaccurate.  I  claim,  before  you  who  know 
the  true  state  of  the  case,  —  I  claim  for  the  antislavery 
movement  with  which  this  society  is  identified,  that,  look 
ing  back  over  its  whole  course,  and  considering  the  men 
connected  with  it  in  the  mass,  it  has  been  marked  by 
sound  judgment,  unerring  foresight,  the  most  sagacious 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  the  strictest  self-discipline, 
the  most  thorough  research,  and  an  amount  of  patient  and 
manly  argument  addressed  to  the  conscience  and  intellect 
of  the  nation,  such  as  no  other  cause  of  the  kind,  in  Eng 
land  or  this  country,  has  ever  offered.  F-claim,  als0jjthat_ 
its  course  has  been  marked  by  a  cheerful  surrender  of 
all  individual  claims  to  merit  or  leadership,  —  the  most 
cordial  welcoming  of  the  slightest  effort,  of  every  honest 


106  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

attempt,  to  lighten  or  to  break  the  chain  of  the  slave.  I 
need  not  waste  time  by  repeating  the  superfluous  con 
fession  that  we  are  men,  and  therefore  do  not  claim  to  be 
perfect.  Neither  would  I  be  understood  as  denying  that 
we  use  denunciation,  and  ridicule,  and  every  other  weapon 
that  the  human  mind  knows.  We  must  plead  guilty,  if 
there  be  guilt  in  not  knowing  how  to  separate  the  sin  from 
the  sinner.  With  all  the  fondness  for  abstractions  at 
tributed  to  us,  we  are  not  yet  capable  of  that.  We  are 
fighting  a  momentous  battle  at  desperate  odds,  —  one 
against  a  thousand.  Every  weapon  that  ability  or  igno 
rance,  wit,  wealth,  prejudice,  or  fashion  can  command,  is 
pointed  against  us.  The  guns  are  shotted  to  their  lips. 
The  arrows  are  poisoned.  Fighting  against  such  an  array, 
we  cannot  afford  to  confine  ourselves  to  any  one  weapon. 
The  cause  is  not  ours,  so  that  wTe  might,  rightfully,  post 
pone  or  put  in  peril  the  victory  by  moderating  our  de 
mands,  stifling  our  convictions,  or  filing  down  our  rebukes, 
to  gratify  any  sickly  taste  of  our  own,  or  to  spare  the 
delicate  nerves  of  our  neighbor.  Our  clients  are  three 
millions  of  Christian  slaves,  standing  dumb  suppliants  at 
the  threshold  of  the  Christian  world.  They  have  no 
voice  but  ours  to  utter  their  complaints,  or  to  demand 
justice.  The  press,  the  pulpit,  the  wealth,  the  litera 
ture,  the  prejudices,  the  political  arrangements,  the 
present  self-interest  of  the  country,  are  all  against  us. 
God  has  given  us  no  weapon  but  the  truth,  faithfully 
uttered,  and  addressed,  with  the  old  prophets'  directness, 
to -the  conscience  of  the  individual  sinner.  The  elements 
which  control  public  opinion  and  mould  the  masses  are 
against  us.  We  can  but  pick  off  here  and  there  a  man 
from  the  triumphant  majority.  WeJia^JB-facts  for  those 
who  think,  arguments  for  those  who  reason  ;  but  he  who 
cannot  be  reasoned  out  of  his  prejudices  must  be  laughed 
out  of  them  ;  he  who  cannot  be  argued  out  of  his  selfish- 


THE  ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  107 

must  be  sliamed  out  of  it  by  the  mirror  of  his  hateful 
self  held  up  relentlessly  before  his  eyes.  We  live  in  a 
land  where  every  man  makes  broad  his  phylactery,  in 
scribing  thereon,  "  All  men  are  created  equal,"  —  "  God 
hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men."  It  seems  to 
us  that  in  such  a  land  there  must  be,  on  this  question  of 
slavery,  sluggards  to  be  awakened,  as  well  as  doubters  to 
be  convinced.  Many  more,  we  verily  believe,  of  the  first 
than  of  the  last.  There  are  far  more  dead  hearts  to  be 
quickened,  than  confused  intellects  to  be  cleared  up,  — 
more  dumb  dogs  to  be  made  to  speak,  than  doubting 
conscfences  to  be  enlightened.  [Loud  cheers.]  We 
have  use,  then,  sometimes,  for  something  beside  argu 
ment. 

What  is  the  denunciation  with  which  we  are  charged  ? 
It  is  endeavoring,  in  our  faltering  human  speech,  to  de 
clare  the  enormity  of  the  sin  of  making  merchandise  of 
men,  —  of  separating  husband  and  wife,  —  taking  the 
infant  from  its  mother,  and  selling  the  daughter  to  pros 
titution,  —  of  a  professedly  Christian  nation  denying,  by 
statute,  the  Bible  to  every  sixth  man  and  woman  of  its 
population,  and  making  it  illegal  for  "  two  or  three  "  to 
meet  together,  except  a  white  man  be  present !  What 
is  this  harsh  criticism  of  motives  with  which  we  are 
charged?  It  is  simply  holding  the  intelligent  and  delib 
erate  actor  responsible  for  the  character-  and  consequences 
of  his  acts.  Is  there  anything  inherently  wrong  in  such 
denunciation  or  such  criticism  ?  This_we_may ;jjjajmr  — 
we  have  never  judged  a  "man  but  out  of  his  own  mouth. 
We  have  seldom,  if  ever,  held  him  to  account,  except  for 
acts  of  which  he  and  his  own  friends  were  proud.  All 
that  we  ask  the  world  and  thoughtful  men  to  note  are 
the  principles  and  deeds  on  which  the  American  pulpit 
and  American  public  men  plume  themselves.  We  always 
allow  our  opponents  to  paint  their  own  pictures.  Our 


108  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF 

humble  duty  is  to  stand  by  and  assure  the  spectators  that 
what  they  would  take  for  a  knave  or  a  hypocrite  is  really, 
in  American  estimation,  a  Doctor  of  Divinity  or  Secretary 
of  State.* 

The  South  is  one  great  brothel,  where  half  a  million  of 
women  are  flogged  to  prostitution,  or,  worse  still,  are 
degraded  to  believe  it  honorable.  The  public  squares 
of  half  our  great  cities  echo  to  the  wail  of  families  torn 
asunder  at  the  auction-block  ;  no  one  of  our  fair  rivers 
that  has  not  closed  over  the  negro  seeking  in  death  a 
refuge  from  a  life  too  wretched  to  bear ;  thousands  of 
fugitives  skulk  along  our  highways,  afraid  to  tell  their 
names,  and  trembling  at  the  sight  of  a  human  being ; 
free  men  are  kidnapped  in  our  streets,  to  be  plunged  into 
that  hell  of  slavery ;  and  now  and  then  one,  as  if  by  mir- 

*  A  paragraph  from  the  New  England  Fanner,  of  this  city,  has  gone  the 
rounds  of  the  press,  and  is  generally  believed.  It  says  :  — 

"  We  learn,  on  reliable  authority,  that  Mr.  Webster  confessed  to  a  warm 
political  friend,  a  short  time  before  his  death,  that  the  great  mistake  of  his 
life  was  tlfe  famous  Seventh  of  March  Speech,  in  which,  it  will  be  remem 
bered,  he  defended  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and  fully  committed  himself  to 
the  Compromise  Measures.  Before  taking  his  stand  on  that  occasion,  he  is 
said  to  have  corresponded  with  Professor  Stuart,  and  other  eminent  divines, 
to  ascertain  how  far  the  religious  sentiment  of  the  North  would  sustain 
him  in  the  position  he  was  about  to  assume." 

Some  say  this  "  warm  political  friend  "  was  a  clergyman  !  Consider  a 
moment  the  language  of  this  statement,  the  form  it  takes  on  every  lip  and 
in  every  press.  "  The  great  mistake  of  his  life  "  !  Seventy  years  old, 
brought  up  in  New  England  churches,  with  all  the  culture  of  the  world  at 
his  command,  his  soul  melted  by  the  repeated  loss  of  those  dearest  to 
him,  a  great  statesman,  with  a  heart,  according  to  his  admirers,  yet  tendei 
and  fresh,  —  one  who  bent  in  such  agony  over  the  death-bed  of  his  first 
daughter,  —  he  looks  back  on  this  speech,  which  his  friends  say  changed  the 
feelings  of  ten  millions  of  people,  and  made  it  possible  to  enact  and  exe 
cute  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  He  sees  that  it  flooded  the  hearth-stones  of 
thousands  of  colored  men  with  wretchedness  and  despair,  —  crazed  the 
mother,  and  broke  the  heart  of  the  wife,  —  putting  the  virtue  of  woman 
and  the  liberty  of  man  in  the  power  of  the  vilest,  —  and  all,  as  he  at  least 


r 

KIVEE 

THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  109 


'" 

ftcle,  after  long  years,  returns  to  make  men  agh 
his  tale.  The  press  says,  "It  is  all  right  "  ;  and  the 
pulpit  cries,  "  Amen."  They  print  the  Bible  in  every 
tongue  in  which  man  utters  his  prayers  f  and  get  the 
money  to  do  so  by  agreeing  never  to  give  the  book,  in 
the  language  our  mothers  taught  us,  to  any  negro,  free  or 
bond,  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  The  press  says, 
"It  is  all  right";  and  the  pulpit  cries,  "Amen."  The 
slave  lifts  up  his  imploring  eyes,  and  sees  in  every  face 
but  ours  the  face  of  an  enemy.  Prove  to  me  now  that 
harsh  rebuke,  indignant  denunciation,  scathing  sarcasm, 
and  pitiless  ridicule  are  wholly  and  always  unjustifiable  ; 
else  we  dare  not,  in  so  desperate  a  case,  throw  away  any 
weapon~~wlnl3a^ver  brolfe'up  the  crust  of  an  ignorant 
prejudice,  roused  a  slumbering  conscience,  shamed  a 
proud  sinner,  or  changed,  in  any  way,  the  conduct  of  a 

now  saw,  for  nothing.  Yet  one  who,  according  to  his  worshippers,  was 
"  the  grandest  growth  of  our  soil  and  our  institutions,"  looked  back  on 
such  an  act,  and  said  —  what?  With  one  foot  in  the  grave,  said  what  of  it  ? 
"  I  did  wrong  "  ?  "I  committed  a  foul  outrage  on  my  brother  man  "  "? 
"  I  sported  too  carelessly  with  the  welfare  of  the  poor  "  ?  Was  there  no 
moral  chord  in  that  heart,  "  the  grandest  growth  of  our  soil  and  our  insti 
tutions  "  ?  No  !  He  said,  "  I  made  a  mistake  !  "  Not,  "  I  was  false  in 
my  stewardship  of  these  great  talents  and  this  high  position  !  "  No  ! 
But  on  the  chess-board  of  the  political  game,  I  made  a  bad  move  !  I 
threw  away  my  chances  !  A  gambler,  I  did  not  understand  my  cards  ! 
And  to  whom  does  he  offer  this  acknowledgment  ?  To  a  clergyman  !  the 
representative  of  the  moral  sense  of  the  community  !  What  a  picture  ! 
We  laugh  at  the  lack  of  heart  in  Talleyrand,  when  he  says,  "  It  is  worse 
than  a  crime,  a  blunder."  Yet  all  our  New-Englander  can  call  this  mo 
mentous  crime  of  his  life  is  —  a  mistake  I 

Whether  this  statement  be  entirely  true  or  not,  we  all  know  it  is 
exactly  the  tone  in  which  all  about  us  talk  of  that  speech.  If  the  state 
ment  be  true,  what  an  entire  want  of  right  feeling  and  moral  sensibility  it 
shows  in  Mr.  Webster  !  If  it  be  unfounded,  still  the  welcome  it  has  re 
ceived,  and  the  ready  belief  it  has  gained,  show  the  popular  appreciation 
of  him,  and  of  such  a  crime.  Such  is  the  public  with  which  Abolitionists 
have  to  deal. 


110  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

human  being.  Our  aim  is  to  alter  public  opinion.  Did 
we  live  in  a  market,  our  talk  should  be  of  dollars  and 
cents,  and  we  would  seek  to  prove  only  that  slavery  was 
an  unprofitable  investment.  Were  the  nation  one  great, 
pure  church,  we  would  sit  down  and  reason  of  "right 
eousness,  temperance,  and  judgment  to  come."  Had 
slavery  fortified  itself  in  a  college,  we  would  load  our 
cannons  with  cold  facts,  and  wing  our  arrows  with  argu 
ments.  But_wejhappen .to  live  in  the  world,  —  the  world 
made  up  of  thought  and  impulse,  of  self-conceit  and  self- 
interest,  of  weak  men  and  wicked.  To  conquer,  we  must 
reach  all.  Our  object  is  not  to  make  every  man  a  Chris 
tian  or  a  philosopher,  but  to  induce  every  one  to  aid  in 
the  abolition  of  slavery.  \Ke__ejqifijcL -to  -  accomplish  jour 
•object  long  beford  the  nation  is  made  over  into  saints  or 
elevated  into  philosophers.  To  change  public  opinion,  we 
use  the  very  tools  by  which  it  was  formed.  That  is,  till 
such  as  an  honest  man  may  touch. 

All  this  I  am  not  only  ready  to  allow,  but  I  should  be 
ashamed  to  think  of  the  slave,  or  to  look  into  the  face  of 
my  fellow-man,  if  it  were  otherwise.  It  is  the  only  thing 
which  justifies  us  to  our  own  consciences,  and  makes  us 
able  to  say  we  have  done,  or  at  least  tried  to  do,  our  duty. 

So  far,  however  you  distrust  my  philosophy,  you  \vill 
not  doubt  my  statements.  That  we  have  denounced  and 
rebuked  with  unsparing  fidelity  will  not  be  denied.  Have 
we  not  also  addressed  ourselves  to  that  other  duty,  of  ar 
guing  our  question  thoroughly  ?  —  of  using  due  discretion 
and  fair  sagacity  in  endeavoring  to  promote  our  cause? 
Yes,  we  have.  Every  statement  we  have  made  has  been 
doubted.  Every  principle  we  have  laid  down  has  been 
denied  by  overwhelming  majorities  against  us.  No  one 
step  has  ever  been  gained  but  by  the  most  laborious 
research  and  the  most  exhausting  argument.  And  no 
question  has  ever,  since  Revolutionary  days,  been  so  thor- 


THE   ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  Ill 

-eughly  investigated  or  argued  here,  as  that  of  slavery. 
•Qfthat  research  and  that  argument,  of  the  whole  of  it, 
the  old-fashioned,  fanatical,  crazy  Garrisonian  antislavery 
movement  has  been  the  author.  ^£om  this  band  of  men 
has  proceeded  every  important  argument  or  idea  which 
has  been  broached  on  the  antislavery  question  from  1830 
to  the  present  time.  [Cheers.]  I  am  well  aware  of  the 
extent  of  the  claim  I  make.  I  recognize,  as  fully  as  any 
one  can,  the  ability  of  the  new  laborers,  —  the  eloquence 
and  genius  with  which  they  have  recommended  this  cause 
to  the  nation,  and  flashed  conviction  home  on  the  con 
science  of  the  community.  I  do  not  mean,  either,  to 
assert  that  they  have  in  every  instance  borrowed  from  our 
treasury  their  facts  and  arguments.  Left  to  themselves, 
they  would  probably  have  looked  up  the  one  and  origi 
nated  the  other.  As  a  matter,  of  fact,  however,  they  have 
generally  made  use  of  the  materials  collected  to  their 
hands.  But  there  are  some  persons  about  us,  sympathiz 
ers  to  a  great  extent  with  "  Ion,"  who  pretend  that  the 
antislavery  movement  has  been  hitherto  mere  fanaticism, 
its  only  weapon  angry  abuse.  They  are  obliged  to  assert 
this,  in  order  to  justify  their  past  indifference  or  hostility. 
At  present,. when  it  suits  their  purpose  to  give  it  some  at 
tention,  they  endeavor  to  explain  the  change  by  alleging 
that  now  it  has  been  taken  up  by  men  of  thoughtful 
minds,  and  its  claims  are  urged  by  fair  discussion  and  able 
argument.  vMy  claim,  then,  is  this :  that  neither  the  char 
ity  of  the  most  timid  of  sects,  the  sagacity  of  our  wisest 
converts,  nor  the  culture  of  the  ripest  scholars,  though  all 
have  been  aided  by  our  twenty  years'  experience,  has  yet 
struck  out  any  new  method  of  reaching  the  public  mind, 
or  originated  any  new  argument  or  train  of  thought,  or 
discovered  any  new  fact  bearing  on  the  question.  When 
once  brought  fully  into  the  struggle,  they  have  found  it 
necessary  to  adopt  the  same  means,  to  rely  on  the  same 


112  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF 

arguments,  to  hold  up  the  same  men  and  the  same  meas 
ures  to  public  reprobation,  with  the  same  bold  rebuke  and 
unsparing  invective  that  we  have  used.  All  their  con 
ciliatory  bearing,  their  painstaking  moderation,  their  con 
stant  and  anxious  endeavor  to  draw  a  broad  line  between 
their  camp  and  ours,  have  been  thrown  away.  Just  so 
far  as  they  have  been  effective  laborers,  they  have  found, 
as  we  have,  their  hands  against  every  man,  and  every 
man's  hand  against  them.  The  most  experienced  of  them 
are  ready  to  acknowledge  that  our  plan  has  been  wise,  our 
course  efficient,  and  that  our  unpopularity  is  no  fault  of 
ours,  but  flows  necessarily  and  unavoidably  from  our  posi 
tion.  ^  I  should  suspect,"  says  old  Fuller,  "  that  his 
preaching  had  no  salt  in  it,  if  no  galled  horse  did  wince." 
Our  friends  find,  after  all,  that  men  do  not  so  much  hate 
us  as  the  truth  we  utter  and  the  light  we  bring.  They 
find  that  the  community  are  not  the  honest  seekers  after 
truth  which  they  fancied,  but  selfish  politicians  and  secta 
rian  bigots,  who  shiver,  like  Alexander's  butler,  whenever 
the  sun  shines  on  them.  Experience  has  driven  these 
new  laborers  back  to  our  method.  We  have  no  quarrel 
with  them,  —  would  not  steal  one  wreath  of  their  laurels. 
All  we  claim  is,  that,  if  they  are  to  be  complimented  as 
prudent,  moderate,  Christian,  sagacious,  statesmanlike  re 
formers,  we  deserve  the  same  praise  ;  for  they  have  done 
nothing  that  we,  in  our  measure,  did  not  attempt  before. 
[Cheers.] 

I  claim  this,  that  the  cause,  in  its  recent  aspect,  lias  put 
on  nothing  but  timidity.  It  has  taken  to  itself  no  new 
weapons  of  recent  years  ;  it  has  become  more  compromis- 
ingi_—  that  is  all !  Tt  has  become  neither  more  persua 
sive,  more  learned,  more  Christian,  more  charitable,  nor 
more  effective  than  for  the  twenty  years  preceding.  Mr. 
Hale,  the  head  of  the  Free  Soil  movement,  after  a  career 
in  the  Senate  that  would  do  honor  to  any  man,  —  after  a 


THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  113 

six  years'  course  which  entitles  him  to  the  respect  and 
confidence  of  the  antislavery  public,  —  can  put  his  name, 
within  the  last  month,  to  an  appeal  from  the  city  of 
Washington,  signed  by  a  Houston  and  a  Cass,  for  a  monu 
ment  to  be  raised  to  Henry  Clay  !  If  that  be  the  test  of 
charity  and  courtesy,  we  cannot  give  it  to  the  world. 
[Loud  cheers.]  Some  of  the  leaders  of  the  Free  Soil 
party  of  Massachusetts,  after  exhausting  the  whole  capa 
city  of  our  language  to  paint  the  treachery  of  Daniel 
Webster  to  the  cause  of  liberty,  and  the  evil  they  thought 
he  was  able  and  seeking  to  do,  —  after  that,  could  feel  it 
in  their  hearts  to  parade  themselves  in  the  funeral  proces 
sion  got  up  to  do  him  honor !  In  this  we  allow  we  cannot 
follow  them/__The  deference  which  every  gentleman  owes 
to  the  proprieties  of  social  life,  that  self-respect  and  re- 
garcTto  consistency  which  is  every  man's  duty^j^jtliesfvif 
no  deeper  feelings,  will  ever  prevent  us  from  giving  such 
proofs  of  this  newly-invented  Christian  courtesy.  [Great 
cheering.]  We  do  not  play,  politics;  antislavery  is  no 
half-jest  with  us ;  it  i«  a  terrible  earnest,_wjth  life  orjdeath, 
3vorse  than  jife..  ojr^death,  on  the  issue.  \  It  is  no  lawsuit, 
where  it  matters  not  to  the  good  feeling  of  opposing  coun 
sel  which  way  the  verdict  goes,  and  where  advocates  can 
shake  hands  after  the  decision  as  pleasantly  as  before. 
When  we  think  of  such  a  man  as  Henry  Clay,  his  long 
life,  his  mighty  influence  cast  always  into  the  scale  against 
the  slave,  —  of  that  irresistible  fascination  with  which  he 
moulded  every  one  to  his  will ;  when  we  remember  that, 
his  conscience  acknowledging  the  justice  of  our  cause, 
and  his  heart  open  on  every  other  side  to  the  gentlest  im 
pulses,  he  could  sacrifice  so  remorsely  his  convictions  and 
the  welfare  of  millions  to  his  low  ambition  ;  when  we 
think  how  the  slave  trembled  at  the  sound  of  his  voice, 
and  that,  from  a  multitude  of  breaking  hearts  there  went 
up  nothing  but  gratitude  to  God  when  it  pleased  him  to 
8 


114  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF 

call  that  great  sinner  from  this  world,  —  we  cannot  find  it 
in  our  hearts,  we  could  not  shape  our  lips  to  ask  any  man 
to  do  him  honor.  [Great  sensation.]  fStfo  amount  of 
eloquence,  no  sheen  of  official  position,  no  loud  grief  of 
partisan  friends,  would  ever  lead  us  to  ask  monuments  or 
walk  in  fine  processions  for  pirates  ;  and  the  sectarian  zeal 
or  selfish  ambition  which  gives  up,  deliberately  and  in  full 
knowledge  of  the  facts,  three  million  of  human  beings  to 
hopeless  ignorance,  daily  robbery,  systematic  prostitution, 
and  murder,  which  the  law  is  neither  able  nor  undertakes, 
to  prevent  or  avenge,  is  more  monstrous,  in  our  eyes,  than 
the  love  of  gold  which  takes  a  score  of  lives  with  merciful 
quickness  on  the  high  seas.  Haynau  on  the  Danube  is  no 
more  hateful  to  us  than  Haynau  on  the  Potomac.  Why 
give  mobs  to  one,  and  monuments  to  the  other  ? 

If  these  things  be  necessary  to  courtesy,  I  cannot  claim 
that  we  are  courteous.  We  seek  only  to  be  honest  men, 
and  speak  the  same  of  the  dead  as  of  the  living.  If  the 
grave  that  hides  their  bodies  could  swallow  also  the  evil 
they  have  done  and  the  example  they  leave,  we  might 
enjoy  at  least  the  luxury  of  forgetting  them.  But  the 
evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them,  and  example  acquires 
tenfold  authority  when  it  speaks  from  the  grave.  His 
tory,  also,  is  to  be  written.  How  shall  a  feeble  minority, 
without  weight  or  influence  in  the  country,  with  no  jury 
of  millions  to  appeal  to,  —  denounced,  vilified,  and  con 
temned, —  how  shall  we  make  way  against  the  over 
whelming  weight  of  some  colossal  reputation,  if  we  do 
not  turn  from  the  idolatrous  present,  and  appeal  to  the 
human  race?  saying  to  your  idols  of  to-day,  "  Here  we 
are  defeated ;  but  we  will  write  our  judgment  with  the 
iron  pen  of  a  century  to  come,  and  it  shall  never  be 
forgotten,  if  we  can  help  it,  that  you  were  false  in  your 
generation  to  the  claims  of  the  slave  !  "  [Loud  cheers.] 

At  present,  our  leading  men,  strong  in  the  support  of 


THE  ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  115 

large  majorities,  and  counting  safely  on  the  prejudices  of 
the  community,  can  afford  to  despise  us.  They  know 
they  can  overawe  or  cajole  the  Present ;  their  only  fear 
is  the  judgment  of  the  Future.  .  Strange  fear,  perhaps, 
considerino-  how  short  and  local  their  fame  !  But  however 

C? 

little,  it  is  their  all.  Our  only  hold  upon  them  is  the 
thought  of  that  bar  of  posterity,  before  which  we  are  all 
to  stand.  Thank  God !  there  is  the  elder  brother  of  the 
Saxon  race  across  the  water,  —  there  is  the  army  of  hon 
est  men  to  come !  Before  that  jury  we  summon  you. 
We  are  weak  here,  —  out-talked,  out-voted.  You  load 
our  names  .with  infamy,  and  shout  us  down.  But  our 
words  bide  their  time.  We  warn  the  living  that  we  have 
terrible  memories,  and  that  their  sins  are  never  to  be  for 
gotten.  We  will  gibbet  the  name  of  every  apostate  so 
black  and  high  that  his  children's  children  shall  blush  to 
bear  it.  Yet  we  bear  no  malice,  —  cherish  no  resentment. 
We  thank  God  that  the  love  of  fame,  "  that  last  infirmity 
of  noble  mind,"  is  shared  by  the  ignoble.  -In  our  neces 
sity,  we  seize  this  weapon  in  the  slave's  behalf,  and  teach 
caution  to  the  living  by  meting  out  relentless  justice  to 
the  dead.  How  strange  the  change  death  produces  in  the 
way  a  man  is  talked  about  here !  While  leading  men 
lijfi^they  avoid  as  much  as  possible  all  mention  of  slavery, 
from,  fear  of  being  thought  Abolitionists.  The  moment 
they  are  dead,  their  friends  rake  up  every  word  they  ever 
contrived  to  whisper  in  a  corner  for  liberty,  and  parade  it 
before  the  world ;  growing  angry,  all  the  while,  with  us, 
because  we  insist  on  explaining  these  chance  expressions 
by  the  tenor  of  a  long  and  base  life.  While  drunk  with 
the  temptations  of  the  present  hour,  men  are  willing  to 
bow  to  any  Moloch.  When  their  friends  bury  them,  they 
feel  what  bitter  mockery,  fifty  years  hence,  any  epitaph 
will  be,  if  it  cannot  record  of  one  living  in  this  era  some 
service  rendered  to  the  slave !  These,  Mr.  Chairman, 


116  THE    PHILOSOPHY   OF 

are  the  reasons  why  we  take  care  that  "  the  memory  of 
the  wicked  shall  rot." 

I  have  claimed  that  the  antislavery  cause  has,  from  the 
first,  been  ably  and  dispassionately  argued,  every  objection 
candidly  examined,  and  every  difficulty  or  doubt  anywhere 
honestly  entertained  treated  with  respect.  Let  me  glance 
at  the  literature  of  the  cause,  and  try  not  so  much,  in  a 
brief  hour,  to  prove  this  assertion,  as  to  point  out  the 
sources  from  which  any  one .  may  satisfy  himself  of  its 
truth. 

I  will  begin  with  certainly  the  ablest  and  perhaps  the 
most  honest  statesman  who  has  ever  touched  the  slave 
question.  Any  one  who  will  examine  John  Quincy 
Adams's  speech  on  Texas,  in  1838,  will  see  that  he  was 
only  seconding  the  full  and  able  exposure  of  the  Texas 
plot,  prepared  by  Benjamin  Lundy,  to  one  of  whose 
pamphlets  Dr.  Channing,  in  his  "  Letter  to  Henry  Clay," 
has  confessed  his  obligation.  Every  one  acquainted  with 
those  years  will  allow  that  the  North  owes  its  earliest 
knowledge  and  first  awakening  on  that  subject  to  Mr. 
Lundy,  who  made  long  journeys  and  devoted  years  to 
the  investigation.  His  labors  have  this  attestation,  that 
they  quickened  the  zeal  and  strengthened  the  hands  of 
such  men  as  Adams  and  Channing.  I  have  been  told 
that  Mr.  Lundy  prepared  a  brief  for  Mr.  Adams,  and 
furnished  him  the  materials  for  his  speech  on  Texas. 

-Look_next  at  the  right  of  petition..  >  Long  before  any 
member  of  Congress  had  opened  his  mouth  in  its  defence, 
the  Abolition  presses  and  lecturers  had  examined  and 
defended  the  limits  of  this  right  with  profound  historical 
research  and  eminent  constitutional  ability.  So  thor 
oughly  had  the  work  been  done,  that  all  classes  of  the 
people  had  made  up  their  minds  about  it  long  before 
any  speaker  of  eminence  had  touched  it  in  Congress. 
The  politicians  were  little  aware  of  this.  When  Mr, 


1HE   ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  117 

Adams  threw  himself  so  gallantly  into  the  breach,  it  is 
said  he  wrote  anxiously  home  to  know  whether  he  would 
be  supported  in  Massachusetts,  little  aware  of  the  outburst 
of  popular  gratitude  which  the  Northern  breeze  was  even 
then  bringing  him,  deep  and  cordial  enough  to  wipe  away 
the  old  grudge  Massachusetts  had  borne  him  so  long. 
Mr.  Adams  himself  was  only  in  favor  of  receiving  the 
petitions,  and  advised  to  refuse  their  prayer,  which  was 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District.  He  doubted  the 
power  of  Congress  to  abolish.  His  doubts  were  examined 
by  Mr.  William  Goodell,  in  two  letters  of  most  acute 
logic,  and  of  masterly  ability.  If  Mr.  Adams  still  re 
tained  his  doubts,  it  is  certain  at  least  that  he  never 
expressed  them  afterward.  When  Mr.  Clay  paraded 
the  same  objections,  the  whole  question  of  the  power 
of  Congress  over  the  district  was  treated  by  Theodore 
D.  Weld  in  the  fullest  manner,  and  with  the  widest 
research,  —  indeed,  leaving  nothing  to  be  added :  an  ar 
gument  which  Dr.  Channing  characterized  as  "  demon 
stration,"  and  pronounced  the  essay  "  one  of  the  ablest 
pamphlets  from  the  American  press."  No  answer  was 
ever  attempted.  The  best  proof  of  its  ability  is,  that 
no  one  since  has  presumed  to  doubt  the  power.  Law 
yers  and  statesmen  have  tacitly  settled  down  into  its 
full  acknowledgment. 

The  influence  of  the  Colonization  Society  on  the  wel 
fare  of  the  colored  race  was  the  first  question  our  move 
ment  encountered.  To  the  close  logic,  eloquent  appeals, 
and  fully  sustained  charges  of  Mr.  Garrison's  Letters  on 
that  subject  no  answer  was  ever  made.  Judge  Jay  fol 
lowed  with  a  work  full  and  able,  establishing  every  charge 
by  the  most  patient  investigation  of  facts.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  of  these  two  volumes,  that  they  left  the  Col 
onization  Society  hopeless  at  the  North.  It  dares  never 
show  its  face  before  the  people,  and  only  lingers  in  some 


118  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

few  nooks  of  sectarian  pride,  so  secluded  from  the  influ 
ence  of  present  ideas  as  to  be  almost  fossil  in  their  char 
acter. 

The  practical  working  of  the  slave  system,  the  slave 
laws,  the  treatment  of  slaves,  their  food,  the  duration  of 
their  lives,  their  ignorance  and  moral  condition,  and  the 
influence  of  Southern  public  opinion  on  their  fate,  have 
been  spread  out  in  a  detail  and  with  a  fulness  of  evidence 
which  no  subject  has  ever  received  before  in  this  country. 
Witness  the  works  of  Phelps,  Bourne,  Rankin,  Grimke,  the 
"  Antislavery  Record,"  and,  above  all,  that  encyclopaedia 
of  facts  and  storehouse  of  arguments,  the  "  Thousand  Wit 
nesses  "  of  Mr.  Theodore  D.  Weld.  He  also  prepared 
that  full  and  valuable  tract  for  the  World's  Convention 
called  "  Slavery  and  the  Internal  Slave-Trade  in  the 
United  States,"  published  in  London,  1841.  Unique  in 
antislavery  literature  is  Mrs.  Child's  "  Appeal,"  one  of 
the  ablest  of  our  weapons,  and  one  of  the  finest  efforts 
of  her  rare  genius. 

.  The  Princeton  Review,  I  believe,  first  challenged  the 
Abolitionists  to  an  investigation  of  the  teachings  of  the 
Bible  on  slavery.  That  field  had  been  somewhat  broken 
by  our  English  predecessors.  But  in  England,  the  pro- 
slavery  party  had  been  soon  shamed  out  of  the  attempt  to 
drag  the  Bible  into  their  service,  and  hence  the  discussion 
there  had  been  short  and  somewhat  superficial.  The  pro- 
slavery  side  of  the  question  has  been  eagerly  sustained 
by  theological  reviews  and  doctors  of  divinity  without 
number,  from  the  half-way  and  timid  faltering  of  Way- 
land  up  to  the  unblushing  and  melancholy  recklessness  of 
Stuart.  The  argument  on  the  other  side  has  come  wholly 
from  the  Abolitionists;  for  neither  Dr.  Hague  nor  Dr. 
Barnes  can  be  said  to  have  added  anything  to  the  wide 
research,  critical  acumen,  and  comprehensive  views  of 
Theodore  D.  Weld,  Beriah  Green,  J.  G.  Fee,  and  the 
old  work  of  Duncan. 


THE  ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  119 

On  the  constitutional  questions  which  have  at  various 
times  arisen,  —  the  citizenship  of  the  colored  man,  the 
soundness  of  the  "  Prigg "  decision,  the  constitutionality 
of  the  old  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  the  true  construction  of 
the  slave-surrender  clause,  —  nothing  has  been  added, 
either  in  the  way  of  fact  or  argument,  to  the  works  of 
Jay,  Weld,  Alvan  Stewart,  E.  G.  Loring,  S.  E.  Sewall, 
Richard  Hildreth,  W.  I.  Bowditch,  the  masterly  essays 
of  the  Emancipator  at  New  York  and  the  Liberator  at 
Boston,  and  the  various  addresses  of  the  Massachusetts 
and  American  Societies  for  the  last  twenty  years.  The 
idea  of  the  aiitislavery  •  character  of  the  Constitution, — • 
the  opiate  with  which  Free  Soil\quiets  its  conscience  for 
voting  under  .a  .proslavery ••government,  —  I  heard  first 
suggested  by  Mr.  Garrison  in  1838.  It  was  elaborately 
argued  that  year  in  all  our  antislavery  gatherings,  both 
here  and  in  New  York,  and  sustained  with  great  ability 
by  Alvan  Stewart,  and  in  part  by  T.  D.  Weld.  The 
antislavery  construction  of  the  Constitution  was  ably 
argued  in  1836,  in  the  "  Antislavery  Magazine,"  by  Rev. 
Samuel  J.  May,  one  of  the  very  first  to  seek  the  side  of 
Mr.  Garrison,  and  pledge  to  the  slave  his  life  and  efforts,  — 
a  pledge  which  thirty  years  of  devoted  labors  have  nobly 
redeemed.  If  it  has  either  merit  or  truth,  they  are  due 
to  no  legal  learning  recently  added  to  our  ranks,  but  to 
some  of  the  old  and  well-known  pioneers.  This  claim 
has  since  received  the  fullest  investigation  from  Mr.  Ly- 
sander  Spooner,  who  has  urged  it  with  all  his  unrivalled 
ingenuity,  laborious  research,  and  close  logic.  He  writes 
as  a  lawyer,  and  has  no  wish,  I  believe,  to  be  ranked  with 
any  class  of  antislavery  men. 

The  influence  of  slavery  on  our  government  has  re 
ceived  the  profoundest  philosophical  investigation  from 
the, pen  of  Richard  Hildreth,  in  his  invaluable  essay  on 
"Despotism  in  America," — a  work  which  deserves  a 


120  THE  PfiftOSOPHY    OF 

place  by  the  side  of  the  ablest  political  disquisitions  of 
any  age. 

Mrs.  Chapman's  survey  of  "  Ten  Years  of  Antislavery 
Experience,"  was  the  first  attempt  at  a  philosophical  dis 
cussion  of  the  various  aspects  of  the  antislavery  cause,  and 
the  problems  raised  by  its  struggles  with  sect  and  party. 
You,  Mr.  Chairman,  [Edmund  Quincy,  Esq.,]  in  the  elab 
orate  Reports  of  the  Massachusetts  Antislavery  Society 
for  the  last  ten  years,  have  followed  in  the  same  path, 
making  to  American  literature  a  contribution  of  the  high 
est  value,  and  in  a  department  where  you  have  few  rivals 
and  no  superior.  Whoever  shall  write  the  history  either 
of  this  movement,  or  any  other  attenipted  under  a  re 
publican  government,  will  find  nowhere  else  so  clear  an 
insight  and  so  full  an  acquaintance  with  the  most  difficult 
part  of  his  subject. 

Even  the  vigorous  mind  of  Rantoul,  the  ablest  man, 
without  doubt,  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  perhaps  the 
ripest  politician  in  New  England,  added  little  or  nothing 
to  the  storehouse  of  antislavery  argument.  The  grasp  of 
his  intellect  and  the  fulness  of  his  learning  every  one 
will  acknowledge.  He  never  trusted  himself  to  speak  on 
any  subject  till  he  had  dug  down  to  its  primal  granite. 
He  laid  a  most  generous  contribution  on  the  altar  of  the 
antislavery  cause.  His  speeches  on  our  question,  too  short 
and  too  few,  are  remarkable  for  their  compact  statement, 
iron  logic,  bold  denunciation,  and  the  wonderful  light 
thrown  back  upon  our  history.  Yet  how  little  do  they 
present  which  was  not  familiar  for  years  in  our  antislavery 
meetings ! 

Look,  too,  at  the  last  great  effort  of  the  idol  of  so  many 
thousands,  Mr.  Senator  Sumner,  —  the  discussion  of  a  great 
national  question^  of  which  it  has  been  said  that  we  must 
go  back  to  Webster's  Reply  to  Hayne,  and  Fisher  Ames 
on  the  Jay  Treaty,  to  find  its  equal  in  Congress,  —  praise 


THE   ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  121 

which  we  might  perhaps  qualify,  if  any  adequate  report 
were  left  us  of  some  of  the  noble  orations  of  Adams. 
No  one  can  be  blind  to  the  skilful  use  he  has  made  of  his 
materials,  the  consummate  ability  with  which  he  has  mar 
shalled  them,  and  the  radiant  glow  which  his  genius  has 
thrown  over  all.  Yet,  with  the  exception  of  his  reference 
to  the  antislavery  debate  in  Congress,  in  1817,  there  is 
hardly  a  train  of  thought  or  argument,  and  no  single  fact 
in  the  whole  speech,  which  has  not  been  familiar  in  our 
meetings  and  essays  for  the  last  ten  years. 

Before  leaving  the  halls  of  Congress,  I  have  great  pleas 
ure  in  recognizing  one  exception  to  my  remarks,vMr.  Gid- 
dings.  Perhaps  he  is  no  real  exception,  since  it  would  not 
be  difficult  to  establish  his  claim  to  be  considered  one  of 
the  original  Abolition  party.  But  whether  he  would 
choose  to  be  so  considered  or  not,  it  is  certainly  true  that 
his  long  presence  at  the  seat  of  government,  his  whole- 
souled  devotedness,  his  sagacity  and  unwearied  industry, 
have  made  him  a  large  contributor  to  our  antislavery 
resources. 

_  The  relations  of  the  American  Church  to  slavery,  and 
the  duties  of  private  Christians,  —  the  whole  casuistry  of 
this  portion  of  the  question,  so  momentous  among  descend 
ants  of  the  Puritans, — have  been  discussed  with  great 
acuteness  and  rare  common-sense  by  Messrs.  Garrison, 
Goodell,  Gerritt  Smith,  Pillsbury,  and  Foster.  They  have 
never  attempted  to  judge  the  American  Church  by  any 
standard  except  that  which  she  has  herself  laid  down,  — 
..never  claimed  that  she  should  be  perfect,  but  have  con 
tented  themselves  by  demanding  that  she  should  be  con 
sistent.  They  have  never  judged  her  except  out  of  her 
own  mouth,  and  on  facts  asserted  by  her  own  presses  and 
leaders.  The  sundering  of  the  Methodist  and  Baptist  de 
nominations,  and  the  universal  agitation  of  the  religious 
W£rld,  are  the  best  proof  of  the  sagacity  with  which  their 


122  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

measures  have  been  chosen,  the  cogent  arguments  they 
have  used,  and  the  indisputable  facts  on  which  their 
criticisms  have  been  founded. 

In  nothing  have  the  Abolitionists  shown  more  sagacity 
or  more  thorough  knowledge  of  their  countrymen  than  in 
the  course  they  have  pursued  in  relation  to  the  Church. 
None  but  a  New-Englander  can  appreciate  the  power 
which  church  organizations  wield  over  all  who  share  the 
blood  of  the  Puritans.  The  influence  of  each  sect  over  its 
own  members  is  overwhelming,  often  shutting  out,  or  con 
trolling,  all  other  influences.  We  have  Popes  here,  all 
the  more  dangerous  because  no  triple  crown  puts  you  on 
your  guard.  The  Methodist  priesthood  brings  the  Cath 
olic  very  vividly  to  mind.  That  each  local  church  is  in 
dependent  of  all  others,  we  have  been  somewhat  careful  to 
assert,  in  theory  and  practice.  The  individual's  indepen 
dence  of  all  organizations  which  place  themselves  between 
him  and  his  God,  some  few  bold  minds  have  asserted  in 
theory,  but  most  even  of  those  have  stopped  there. 

In  such  a  land,  the  Abolitionists  early  saw,  that,  for  a 
moral  question  like  theirs,  only  two  paths  lay  open :  to 
work  through  the  Church,  —  that  failing,  to  join  battle 
with  it.  Some  tried  long,  like  Luther,  to  be  Protestants, 
and  yet  not  come  out  of  Catholicism ;  but  their  eyes  were 
soon  opened.  Since  then  we  have  been  convinced  that, 
to  come  out  from  the  Church,  to  hold  her  up  as  the  bul 
wark  of  slavery,  and  to  make  her  shortcomings  the  main 
burden  of  our  appeals  to  the  religious  sentiment  of  the 
community,  was  our  first  duty  and  best  policy.  This 
course  alienated  many  friends,  and  was  a  subject  of  fre 
quent  rebuke  from  such  men  as  Dr.  Channing.  But 
nothing  has  ever  more  strengthened  the  cause,  or  won  it 
more  influence ;  and  it  has  had  the  healthiest  effect  on  the 
Church  itself.  British  Christians  have  always  sanctioned 
it,  whenever  the  case  has  been  fairly  presented  to  them. 


THE   ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  123 

Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,  a  man  far  better  acquainted 
with  his  own  times  than  Dr.  Channing,  recognized  tha 
soundness  of  our  policy.  I  do  not  know  that  he  ever 
uttered  a  word  in  public  on  the  delinquency  of  the 
churches  ;  but  he  is  said  to  have  assured  his  son,  at  the 
time  the  Methodist  Church  broke  asunder,  that  other 
men  might  be  more  startled  by  the  eclat  of  political  suc 
cess,  but  nothing,  in  his  opinion,  promised  more  good,  or 
showed  more  clearly  the  real  strength  of  the  antislavery 
movement,  than  that  momentous  event.* 

In  1838,  the  British  Emancipation  in  the  West  Indies 
opened  a  rich  field  for  observation,  and  a  full  harvest  of 
important  facts.  The  Abolitionists,  not  willing  to  wait 
for  the  official  reports  of  the  government,  sent  special 
agents  through  those  islands,  whose  reports  they  scattered, 
at  great  expense  and  by  great  exertion,  broadcast  through 
the  land.  This  was  at  a  time  when  no  newspaper  in  the 
country  would  either  lend  or  sell  them  the  aid  of  its 
columns  to  enlighten  the  nation  on  an  experiment  so 
vitally  important  to  us.  And  even  now,  hardly  a  press 
in  the  country  cares  or  dares  to  bestow  a  line  or  com 
municate  a  fact  toward  the  history  of  that  remarkable 
revolution.  The  columns  of  the  Antislavery  Standard, 
Pennsylvania  Freeman,  and  Ohio  Bugle  have  been  for 
years  full  of  all  that  a  thorough  and  patient  advocacy 
of  our  cause  demands.  And  the  eloquent  lips  of  many 
whom  I  see  around  me,  and  whom  I  need  not  name 
here,  have  done  their  share  toward  pressing  all  these 
topics  on  public  attention.  There  is  hardly  any  record 
of  these  labors  of  the  living  voice.  Indeed,  fr.om  the 
nature  of  the  case,  there  cannot  be  any  adequate  one. 
Yet,  unable  to  command  a  wide  circulation  for  our 

*  Henry  Clay  attached  the  same  importance  to  the  ecclesiastical  influence 
and  divisions.  See  his  "  Interview  with  Rev.  Dr.  Hill,  of  Louisville,  Ky.," 
Antialavery  Standard,  July  14,  1860 


124  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

books  and  journals,  we  have  been  obliged  to  bring  our 
selves  into  close  contact  with  the  people,  and  to  rely 
mainly  on  public  addresses.  These  have  been  our  most 
efficient  instrumentality.  For  proof  that  these  addresses 
have  been  fuh1  of  pertinent  facts,  sound  sense,  and  able 
arguments,  we  must  necessarily  point  to  results,  and 
demand  to  be  tried  by  our  fruits.  Within  these  last 
twenty  years  it  has  been  very  rare  that  any  fact  stated 
by  your  lecturers  has  been  disproved,  or  any  statement  of 
theirs  successfully  impeached.  And  for  evidence  of  the 
soundness,  simplicity,  ami  pertinency  of  their  arguments 
we  can  only  claim  that  our  converts  and  co-laborers 
throughout  the  land  have  at  least  the  reputation  of 
being  specially  able  "  to  give  a  reason  for  the  faith  that 
is  in  them." 

I  remember  that  when,  in  1845,  the  present  leaders  of 
the  Free  Soil  party,  with  Daniel  Webster  in  their  com 
pany,  met  to  draw  up  the  Anti-Texas  Address  of  the 
Massachusetts  Convention,  they  sent  to  Abolitionists  for 
antislavery  facts  and  history,  for  the  remarkable  testi 
monies  of  our  Revolutionary  great  men  which  they 
wished  to  quote.  [Hear !  hear !]  When,  many  years 
ago,  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  wished  to  send  to 
Congress  a  resolution  affirming  the  duty  of  immediate 
emancipation,  the  committee  sent  to  William  Lloyd  Gar 
rison  to  draw  it  up,  and  it  stands  now  on  our  statute-book 
as  he  drafted  it. 

How  vigilantly,  how  patiently,  did  we  watch  the  Texas 
plot  from  its  commencement !  The  politic  South  felt  that 
its  first  move  had  been  too  bold,  and  thenceforward 
worked  underground.  For  many  a  year,  men  laughed 
at  us  for  entertaining  any  apprehensions.  It  was  impos 
sible  to  rouse  the  North  to  its  peril.  David  Lee  Child 
was  thought  crazy,  because  he  would  not  believe  there 
was  no  danger.  His  elaborate  "Letters  on  Texan  An- 


THE  ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  125 

nexation  "  are  the  ablest  and  most  valuable  contribution 
that  has  been  made  towards  a  history  of  the  whole  plot. 
Though  we  foresaw  and  proclaimed  our  conviction  that 
annexation  would  be,  in  the  end,  a  fatal  step  for  the 
South,  we  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to  relax  our  opposition, 
well  knowing  the  vast  increase  of  strength  it  would  give, 
at  first,  to  the  Slave  Power.  I  remember  being  one  of 
a  committee  which  waited  on  Abbott  Lawrence,  a  yeai 
or  so  only  before  annexation,  to  ask  his  countenance  to 
some  general  movement,  without  distinction  of  party, 
against  the  Texas  scheme.  He  smiled  at  our  fears, 
begged  us  to  have  no  apprehensions  ;  stating  that  his  cor 
respondence  with  leading  men  at  Washington  enabled  him 
to  assure  us  annexation  was  impossible,  and  that  the 
South  itself  was  determined  to  defeat  the  project.  A 
short  time  after,  Senators  and  Representatives  from  Texas 
took  their  seats  in  Congress  ! 

Many  of  these  services  to  the  slave  were  done  before  I 
joined  his  cause.  In  thus  referring  to  them,  do  not  sup 
pose  me  merely  seeking  occasion  of  eulogy  on  my  prede 
cessors  and  present  co-laborers.  I  recall  these  things  only 
to  rebut  the  contemptuous  criticism  which  some  about  us 
make  the  excuse  for  their  past  neglect  of  the  movement, 
and  in  answer  to  "  Ion's  "  representation  of  our  course  as 
reckless  fanaticism,  childish  impatience,  utter  lack  of  good 
sense,  and  of  our  meetings  as  scenes  only  of  excitement, 
of  reckless  and  indiscriminate  denunciation.  I  assert  that 
every  social,  moral,  economical,  religious,  political,  and 
historical  aspect  of  the  question  has  been  ably  and  pa 
tiently  examined.  And  all  this  has  been  done  with  an 
industry  and  ability  which  have  left  little  for  the  profes 
sional  skill,  scholarly  culture,  and  historical  learning  of  the 
new  laborers  to  accomplish.  If  the  people  are  still  in 
doubt,  it  is  from  the  inherent  difficulty  of  the  subject,  or  a 
hatred  of  light,  not  from  want  of  it. 


126  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

So  far  from  the  antislavery  cause  having  lacked  a  manly 
and  able  .discussion,  I  think  it  will  be  acknowledged  here 
after  that  this  discussion  has  been  one  of  the  noblest  con 
tributions  to  a  literature  really  American.  Heretofore, 
not  only  has  our  tone  been  but  an  echo  of  foreign  culture, 
but  the  very  topics  discussed  and  the  views  maintained 
have  been  too  often  pale  reflections  of  European  politics 
and  European  philosophy.  -  No  matter  what  dress  we 
was  ever  "the  voice  of  Jacob."  At 


last  we  have  stirred  a  question  thoroughly  American  ;  the 
subject  has  been  looked  at  from  a  point  of  view  entirely 
American  ;  and  it  is  of  such  deep  interest,  that  it  has 
called  out  all  the  intellectual  strength  of  the  nation.  For 
once,  the  nation  speaks  its  own  thoughts,  in  its  own 
language,  and  the  tone  also  is  all  its  own.  It  will  hardly 
do  for  the  defeated  party  to  claim  that,  in  this  discussion, 
all  the  ability  is  on  their  side. 

We  are  charged  with  lacking  foresight,  and  said  to 
exaggerate.  This  charge  of  exaggeration  brings  to  my 
mind  a  fact  I  mentioned,  last  month,  at  Horticultural 
Hall.  The  theatres  in  many  of  our  large  cities  bring  out, 
night  after  night,  all  the  radical  doctrines  and  all  the 
startling  scenes  of  "  Uncle  Tom."  They  preach  imme 
diate  emancipation,  and  slaves  shoot  their  hunters  to  loud 
applause.  Tw^__years  ago,  sitting  in  this  hall,  I  was 
myself  somewhat  startled  by  the  assertion  of  my  friend, 
Mr.  Pillsbury,  that  the  theatres  would  receive  the  gospel 
of  antislavery  truth  earlier  than  the  churches.  A  hiss 
went  up  from  the  galleries,  and  many  in  the  audience 
were  shocked  by  the  remark.  I  asked  myself  whether  I 
could  indorse  such  a  statement,  and  felt  that  I  could  not. 
I  could  not  believe  it  to  be  true.  Only  two  years  have 
passed,  and  what  was  then  deemed  rant  and  fanaticism, 
by  seven  out  of  ten  who  heard  it,  has  proved  true.  The 
theatre,  bowing  to  its  audience,  has  preached  immediate 


THE  ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  127 

emancipation,  and  given  us  the  whole  of  "  Uncle  Tom  "  ; 
while  the  pulpit  is  either  silent  or  hostile,  and  in  the 
columns  of  the  theological  papers  the  work  is  subjected  to 
criticism,  to  reproach,  and  its  author  to  severe  rebuke. 
Do  not,  therefore,  friends,  set  down  as  extravagant  every 
statement  which  your  experience  does  not  warrant.  It 
may  be  that  you  and  I  have  not  studied  the  signs  of  the 
times  quite  as  accurately  as  the  speaker.  Going  up  and 
down  the  land,  coming  into  close  contact  with  the  feelings 
and  prejudices  of  the  community,  he  is  sometimes  a  better 
judge  than  you  are  of  its  present  state.  An  Abolitionist 
has  more  motives  for  watching  and  more  means  of  finding 
out  the  true  state  of  public  opinion,  than  most  of  those 
careless  critics  who  jeer  at  his  assertions  to-day,  and  are 
the  first  to  cry,  "  Just  what  /  said,"  when  his  prophecy 
becomes  fact  to-morrow. 

Mr.  "  Ion  "  thinks,  also,  that  we  have  thrown  away 
opportunities,  and  needlessly  outraged  the  men  and  par 
ties  about  us.  Far  from  it.  The  antislavery  movement 
was  a  patient  and  humble  suppliant  at  every  door  whence 
any  help  could  possibly  be  hoped.  .If  we  now  repudiate 
and  denounce  some  of  our  institutions,  it  is  because  we 
have  faithfully  tried  them,  and  found  them  deaf  to  the 
claims  of  justice  and  humanity.N  Our  great  Leader,  when 
he  first  meditated  this  crusade,  did  not 

"  At  once,  like  a  sunburst,  his  banner  unfurl." 

O  no  I  he  bounded  his  way  warily  forward.  Brought  up 
in  the  strictest  reverence  for  church  organizations,  his  first 
effort  was  to  enlist  the  clergymen  of  Boston  in  the  support 
of  his  views.  On  their  aid  he  counted  confidently  in  his 
effort  to  preach  immediate  repentance  of  all  sin.  He  did 
not  go,  with  malice  prepense,  as  some  seem  to  imagine,  up 
to  that  "  attic  "  where  Mayor  Otis  with  difficulty  found 
him.  He  did  not  court  hostility  or  seek  exile.  He 
did  not  sedulously  endeavor  to  cut  himself  off  from 


128  THE  PHILOSOPHY    OF 

the  sympathy  and  countenance  of  the  community  about 
him.  O  no !  A  fervid  disciple  of  the  American  Church, 
he  conferred  with  some  of  the  leading  clergy  of  the 
city,  and  laid  before  them  his  convictions  on  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery.*  He  painted  their  responsibility,  and 
tried  to  induce  them  to  take  from  his  shoulders  the  bur 
den  of  so  mighty  a  movement.  He  laid  himself  at  their 
feet.  He  recognized  the  colossal  strength  of  the  Clergy ; 
he  knew  that  against  their  opposition  it  would  be  almost 
desperate  to  attempt  to  relieve  the  slave.  He  entreated 
them,  therefore,  to  take  up  the  cause.  But  the  Clergy 
turned  away  from  him  !  They  shut  their  doors  upon  him  ! 
They  bade  him  compromise  his  convictions,  —  smother 
one  half  of  them,  and  support  the  colonization  movement, 
making  his  own  auxiliary  to  that,  or  they  would  have  none 
of  him.  Like  Luther,  he  said  :  "  Here  I  stand  ;  God 
help  me  ;  I  can  do  nothing  else  !  "  But  the  men  who 
joined  him  were  not  persuaded  that  the  case  was  so 
desperate.  They  returned,  each  to  his  own  local  sect, 
and  remained  in  them  until  some  of  us,  myself  among  the 
number,  —  later  converts  to  the  antislavery  movement,  — 
thought  they  were  slow  and  faltering  in  their  obedience 
to  conscience,  and  that  they  ought  to  have  cut  loose 

*  "  The  writer  accompanied  Mr.  Garrison,  in  1829,  in  calling  npon  a 
number  of  prominent  ministers  in  Boston,  to  secure  their  co-operation  in 
this  cause.  Our  expectations  of  important  assistance  from  then}  ivere,  at  that 
time,  very  sanguine."  —  Testimony  of  William  Goodell,  in  a  recent  work 
entitled  "  Slavery  and  Antislavery." 

In  an  address  on  Slavery  and  Colonization,  delivered  by  Mr.  Garrison 
in  the  Park  Street  Church,  Boston,  July  4,  1829,  (which  was  subsequently 
published  in  the  National  Philanthropist, )  he  said  :  "  I  call  on  the  ambas 
sadors  of  Christ,  everywhere,  to  make  known  this  proclamation,  <  Thus 
saith  the  Lord  God  of  the  Africans,  Let  this  people  go,  that  they  may 
serve  me/  I  ask  them  to  '  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captive,  and  the  opening 
of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound.'  I  call  on  the  churches  of  the  living 
God  to  LEAD  in  this  great  enterprise." 


THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  129 

much  sooner  than  they  did.  But  a  patience,  which  old 
sympathies  would  not  allow  to  be  exhausted,  and  associa 
tions,  planted  deeply  in  youth,  and  spreading  over  a  large 
part  of  manhood,  were  too  strong  for  any  mere  argument 
to  dislodge  them.  So  they  still  persisted  in  remaining  in 
the  Church.  Their  zeal  was  so  fervent,  and  their  labors 
so  abundant,  that  in  some  towns  large  societies  were 
formed,  led  by  most  of  the  clergymen,  and  having  almost 
all  the  church-members  on  their  lists.  In  those  same 
towns  now  you  will  not  find  one  single  Abolitionist,  of 
any  stamp  whatever.  They  excuse  their  falling  back  by 
alleging  that  we  have  injured  the  cause  by  our  extrava 
gance  and  denunciation,  and  by  the  various  other  ques 
tions  with  which  our  names  are  associated.  This  might 
be  a  good  reason  why  they  should  not  work  with  us,  but 
does  it  excuse  their  not  working  at  all?  These  people 
have  been  once  awakened,  thoroughly  instructed  in  the 
momentous  character  of  the  movement,  and  have  acknowl 
edged  the  rightful  claim  of  the  slave  on  their  sympathy 
and  exertions.  It  is  not  possible  that  a  few  thousand  per 
sons,  however  extravagant,  could  prevent  devoted  men 
from  finding  some  way  to  help  such  a  cause,  or  at  least 
manifesting  their  interest  in  it.  But  they  have  not  only 
left  us,  they  have  utterly  deserted  the  slave,  in  the  hour 
when  the  interests  of  their  sects  came  across  his  cause. 
Is  it  uncharitable  to  conjecture  the  reason  ?  At  the  early 
period,  however,  to  which  I  have  referred,  the  Church 
was  much  exercised  by  the  persistency  of  the  Abolitionists 
in  not  going  out  from  her.  When  I  joined  the  antislavcry 
ranks,  sixteen  years  ago,  the  voice  of  the  clergy  was  : 
"  Will  these  pests  never  leave  us  ?  Will  they  still  remain 
to  trouble  us  ?  If  you  do  not  like  us,  there  is  the  door  !  " 
When  our  friends  had  exhausted  all  entreaty,  and  tested 
the  Christianity  of  that  body,  they  shook  off  the  dust  of 
their  feet,  and  came  out  of  her. 
o 


130  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

At  the  outset,  Mr.  Garrison  called  on  the  head  of  the 
Orthodox  denomination,  —  a  man  compared  with  whose 
influence  on  the  mind  of  New  England  that  of  the  states 
man  whose  death  you  have  just  mourned  was,  I  think, 
but  as  dust  in  the  balance,  —  a  man  who  then  held  the 
Orthodoxy  of  Boston  in  his  right  hand,  and  who  has  since 
taken  up  the  West  by  its  four  corners,  and  given  it  so 
largely  to  Puritanism,  —  I  mean  the  Rev.  Dr.  Lyman 
Beecher.  Mr.  Garrison  was  one  of  those  who  bowed  to 
the  spell  of  that  matchless  eloquence  which  then  fulmined 
over  our  Zion.  He  waited  on  his  favorite  divine,  and 
urged  him  to  give  to  the  new  movement  the  incalculable 
aid  of  his  name  and  countenance.  He  was  patiently 
heard.  He  was  allowed  to  unfold  his  plans  and  array  his 
facts.  The  reply  of  the  veteran  was,  "  Mr.  Garrison,  I 
have  too  many  irons  in  the  fire  to  put  in  another."  My 
friend  said,  "  Doctor,  you  had  better  take  them  all  out  and 
put  this  one  in,  if  you  mean  well  either  to  the  religion  or 
to  the  civil  liberty  of  our  country."  [Cheers.] 

The  great  Orthodox  leader  did  not  rest  with  merely 
refusing  to  put  another  iron  in  his  fire  ;  he  attempted  to 
limit  the  irons  of  other  men.  As  President  of  Lane 
Theological  Seminary,  he  endeavored  to  prevent  the  stu 
dents  from  investigating  the  subject  of  slavery.  The 
result,  we  all  remember,  was  a  strenuous  resistance  on 
the  part  of  a  large  number  of  the  students,  led  by  that  re 
markable  man,  Theodore  D.  Weld.  The  right  triumphed, 
and  Lane  Seminary  lost  her  character  and  noblest  pupils 
at  the  same  time.  She  has  languished  ever  since,  even 
with  such  a  President.  Why  should  I  follow  Dr.  Beecher 
into  those  ecclesiastical  conventions  where  he  has  been 
tried,  and  found  wanting,  in  fidelity  to  the  slave  ?  He 
has  done  no  worse,  indeed  he  has  done  much  better,  than 
most  of  his  class.  His  opposition  has  always  been  open 
and  manly. 


THE    ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  131 

But,  Mr.  Chairman,  there  is  something  in  the  blood 
which,  men  tell  us,  brings  out  virtues  and  defects,  even 
when  they  have  lain  dormant  for  a  generation.  Good  and 
evil  qualities  are  hereditary,  the  physicians  say.  Thex 
blood  whose  warm  currents  of  eloquent  aid  my  friend  so 
licited  in  vain  in  that  generation  has  sprung  voluntarily 
to  his  assistance  in  the  next,  —  both  from  the  pulpit 
and  the  press,  —  to  rouse  the  world  by  the  vigor  and 
pathos  of  its  appeals.  [Enthusiastic  cheers.]  Even  on 
that  great  triumph  I  would  say  a  word.  Marked  and  un 
equalled  as  has  been  that  success,  remember,  in  explana 
tion  of  the  phenomenon,  —  for  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  is 
rather  an  event  than  a  book,  —  remember  this  :  if  the  old 
antislavery  movement  had  not  roused  the  sympathies  of 
Mrs.  Stowe,  the  book  had  never  been  written  ;  if  that 
movement  had  not  raised  up  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
hearts  to  sympathize  with  the  slave,  the  book  had  never 
been  i^ad,  [Cheers.]  Not  that  the  genius  of  the  author 
has  not  made  the  triumph  all  her  own  ;  not  that  the  unri 
valled  felicity  of  its  execution  has  not  trebled,  quadrupled, 
increased  tenfold,  if  you  please,  the  number  of  readers  ; 
but  there  must  be  a  spot  even  for  Archimedes  to  rest  his 
lever  upon,  before  he  can  move  the  world,  [cheers,]  and 
this  effort  of  genius,  consecrated  to  the  noblest  purpose, 
might  have  fallen  dead  and  unnoticed  in  1835.  It  is-the 
antislavery  movement  which  lias  changed  1835  to  1852. 
Those  of  us  familiar  with  antislavery  literature  know 
well  that  Richard  Hildreth's  "  Archy  Moore,"  now  "  The 
White  Slave,"  was  a  book  of  eminent  ability ;  that  it 
o\ved  its  want  of  success  to  no  lack  of  genius,  but  only  to 
the  fact  that  it  was  a  work  born  out  of  due  time  ;  that  the 
antislavery  cause  had  not  then  aroused  sufficient  num 
bers,  on  the  wings  of  whose  enthusiasm  even  the  most 
delightful  fiction  could  have  risen  into  world-wide  influ 
ence  and  repute.^  To  the  cause  which  had  changed  1835 


132  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF 

to   1852  is  due    somewhat  of  the    influence   of  "  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin." 

The  Abolitionists  have  never  overlooked  the  wonderful 
power  which  the  wand  of  the  novelist  was  yet  to  wield  in 
their  behalf  over  the  hearts  of  the  world.  Fredrika  Bre- 
mer  only  expressed  the  common  sentiment  of  many  of 
us,  when  she  declared  that  "  the  fate  of  the  negro  .is  the 
romance  of  our  history."  Again  and  again,  from  my  ear 
liest  knowledge  of  the  cause,  have  I  heard  the  opinion, 
that  in  the  debatable  land  between  Freedom  and  Slavery, 
in  the  thrilling  incidents  of  the  escape  and  sufferings  of 
the  fugitive,  and  the  perils  of  his  friends,  the  future  Wal 
ter  Scott  of  America  would  find  the  "  border-land  "  of 
his  romance,  and  the  most  touching  incidents  of  his  "  sixty 
years  since  "  ;  and  that  the  literature  of  America  would 
gather  its  freshest  laurels  from  that  field. 

So  much,  Mr.  Chairman,  for  our  treatment  of  the 
Church.  We  clung  to  it  as  long  as  we  hoped  to  make  it 
useful.  Disappointed  in  that,  we  have  tried  to  expose  its 
paltering  and  hypocrisy  on  this  question,  broadly  and  with 
unflinching  boldness,  in  hopes  to  purify  and  bring  it  to  our 
aid.  Our  labors  with  the  great  religious  societies,  with 
the  press,  with  the  institutions  of  learning,  have  been  as 
untiring,  and  almost  as  unsuccessful.  We  have  tried  to 
do  our  duty  to  every  public  question  that  has  arisen,  which 
could  be  made  serviceable  in  rousing  general  attention. 
The  Right  of  Petition,  the  Power  of  Congress,  the  Inter 
nal  Slave-Trade,  Texas,  the  Compromise  Measures,  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  the  motions  of  leading  men,  the 
tactics  of  parties,  have  all  been  watched  and  used  with 
sagacity  and  effect  as  means  to  produce  a  change  in  public 
opinion^JDr.  Channing  has  thanked  the  Abolition  party, 
in  the  name"  of  all  the  lovers  of  free  thought  and  free 
speech,  for  having  vindicated  that  right,  when  all  others 
seemed  ready  to  surrender  it,  —  vindicated  it  at  the  cost 


THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  133 

of  reputation,  ease,  property,  even  life  itself.\  The  only 
blood  that  has  ever  been  shed,  on  this  side  tWp  ocean,  in 
defence  of  the  freedom  of  the  press,  was  the  blood  of 
Lovejoy,  one  of  their  number.  In  December,  1836,  Dr. 
Channing  spoke  of  their  position  in  these  terms :  — 

"  Whilst,  in  obedience  to  conscience,  they  have  refrained  from 
opposing  force  to  force,  they  have  still  persevered,  amidst  menace 
and  insult,  in  bearing  their  testimony  against  wrong,  in  giving 
utterance  to  their  deep  convictions.  Of  such  men,  I  do  not  hes 
itate  to  say,  that  they  have  rendered  to  freedo?n  a  more  essential 
service  than  any  body  of  men  among  us.  The  defenders  of 
freedom  are  not  those  who  claim  and  exercise  rights  which  no 
one  assails,  or  who  win  shouts  of  applause  by  well-turned  com 
pliments  to  Liberty  in  the  days  of  her  triumph.  They  are  those 
who  stand  up  for  rights  which  mobs,  conspiracies,  or  single 
tyrants  put  in  jeopardy  ;  who  contend  for  liberty  in  that  particu 
lar  form  which  is  tlireatened  at  the  moment  by  the  many  or  the 
few.  To  the  Abolitionists  this  honor  belongs.  The  first  sys 
tematic  effort  to  strip  the  citizen  of  freedom  of  speech  they  have 
met  with  invincible  resolution.  From  my  heart  I  thank  them. 
I  am  myself  their  debtor.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  should  this  mo 
ment  write  in  safety,  had  they  shrunk  from  the  conflict,  had  they 
shut'  their  lips,  imposed  silence  on  their  presses,  and  hid  them 
selves  before  their  ferocious  assailants.  I  know  not  where  these 
outrages  would  have  stopped,  had  they  not  met  resistance  from 
their  first  destined  victims.  The  newspaper  press,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  uttered  no  genuine  indignant  rebuke  of  the  wrong 
doers,  but  rather  countenanced  by  its  gentle  censures  the  reign 
of  force.  The  mass  of  the  people  looked  supinely  on  this  new 
tyranny,  under  which  a  portion  of  their  fellow-citizens  seemed  to 
be  sinking.  A  tone  of  denunciation  was  beginning  to  proscribe 
all  discussion  of  slavery ;  and  had  the  spirit  of  violence,  which 
selected  associations  as  its  first  objects,  succeeded  in  this  prepar 
atory  enterprise,  it  might  have  been  easily  turned  against  any 
and  every  individual,  who  might  presume  to  agitate  the  unwel 
come  subject.  It  is  hard  to  say  to  what  outrage  the  fettered 
press  of  the  country  might  not  have  been  reconciled.  I  thank 


134  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

the  Abolitionists  that,  in  this  evil  day,  they  were  true  to  the 
rights  which  the  multitude  were  ready  to  betray.  Their  pur 
pose  to  suffer,  to  die,  rather  than  surrender  their  dearest  liberties, 
taught  the  lawless  that  they  had  a  foe  to  contend  with  whom  it 
was  not  safe  to  press,  whilst,  like  all  manly  appeals,  it  called 
forth  reflection  and  sympathy  in  the  better  portion  of  the 
community.  In  the  name  of  freedom  and  humanity,  I  thank 
them." 

No  one,  Mr.  Chairman,  deserves  more  of  that  honor 
than  he  whose  chair  you  now  occupy.  Our  youthful  city 
can  boast  of  but  few  places  of  historic  renown  ;  but  I 
know  of  no  one  which  coming  time  is  more  likely  to  keep 
in  memory  than  the  roof  which  Francis  Jackson  offered 
to  the  antislavery  women  of  Boston,  when  Mayor  Lyman 
confessed  he  was  unable  to  protect  their  meeting,  and 
when  the  only  protection  the  laws  could  afford  Mr.  Garri 
son  was  the  shelter  of  the  common  jail. 

Sir,  when  a  nation  sets  itself  to  do  evil,  and  all  its  lead 
ing  forces,  wealth,  party,  and  piety,  join  in  the  career,  it 
is  impossible  but  that  those  who  offer  a  constant  opposi 
tion  should  be  hated  and  maligned,  no  matter  how  wise, 
cautious,  and  well  planned  their  course  may  be.  We  are 
peculiar  sufferers  in  this  way.  The  community  has  come 
to  hate  its  reproving  Nathan  so  bitterly,  that  even  those 
whom -the  relenting  part  of  it  is  beginning  to  regard  as. 
standard-bearers  of  the  antislavery  host  think  it  unwise 
to  avow  any  connection  or  sympathy  with  him.  I  refer 
to  some  of  the  leaders  of  the  political  movement  against 
slavery.  They  feel  it  to  be  their  mission  to  marshal  and 
use  as  effectively  as  possible  the  present  convictions  of  the 
people.  They  cannot  afford  to  encumber  themselves  with 
the  odium  which  twenty  years  of  angry  agitation  have 
engendered  in  great  sects  sore  from  unsparing  rebuke, 
parties  galled  by  constant  defeat,  and  leading  men  pro 
voked  by  unexpected  exposure.  They  are  willing  to  con- 


THE  ABOLITION  MOVEMENT. 

fess,  privately,  that  our  movement  produced  theirs,  and 
that  its  continued  existence  is  the  very  breath  of  their 
life.  But,  at  the  same  time,  they  would  fain  walk  on  the 
road  without  being  soiled  by  too  close  contact  with  the 
rough  pioneers  who  threw  it  up.  They  are  wise  and  hon 
orable,  and  their  silence  is  very  expressive. 

When  I  speak  of  their  eminent  position  and  acknowl 
edged  ability,  another  thought  strikes  me.  Who  con 
verted  these  men  and  their  distinguished  associates  ?  It 

O 

is  said  we  have  shown  neither  sagacity  in  plans,  nor 
candor  in  discussion,  nor  ability.  Who,  then,  or  what, 
converted  Burlingame  and  Wilson,  Sumner  and  Adams, 
Palfrey  and  Mann,  Chase  and  Hale,  and  Phillips  and 
Giddings  ?  Who  taught  the  Christian  Register,  the  Daily 
Advertiser,  and  that  class  of  prints,  that  there  were  such 
things  as  a  slave  and  a  slaveholder  in  the  land,  and  so 
gave  them  some  more  intelligent  basis  than  their  mere 
instincts  to  hate  William  Lloyd  Garrison  ?  [Shouts  and 
laughter.]  What  magic  wand  was  it  whose  touch  made 
the  toadying  servility  of  the  land  start  up  the  real  demon 
that  it  was,  and  at  the  same  time  gathered  into  the  slave's 
service  the  professional  ability,  ripe  culture,  and  personal 
integrity  which  grace  the  Free  Soil  ranks  ?  We  never 
argue  !  These  men,  then,  were  converted  by  simple 
denunciation  !  They  were  all  converted  by  the  "  hot," 
"  reckless,"  "  ranting,"  "  bigoted,"  "  fanatic  "  Garrison, 
who  never  troubled  himself  about  facts,  nor  stopped  to 
argue  with  an  opponent,  but  straightway  knocked  him 
down!  [Roars  of  laughter  and  cheers.]  My  old  and 
valued  friend,  Mr.  Sumner,  often  boasts  that  he  was  a 
reader  of  the  Liberator  before  I  was.  Do  not  criticise 
too  much  the  agency  by  which  such  men  were  converted. 
That  blade  has  a  double  edge.  Our  reckless  course,  our 
empty  rant,  our  fanaticism,  has  made  Abolitionists  of  some 
of  the  best  and  ablest  men  in  the  land.  We  are  inclined 


136  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

to  go  on,  and  see  if  even  with  such  poor  tools  we  cannot 
make  some  more.  [Enthusiastic  applause.]  Antislavery 
zeal  and  the  roused  conscience  of  the  "godless  come- 
outers  "  made  the  trembling  South  demand  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law,  and  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  "  provoked " 
Mrs.  Stowe  to  the  good  work  of  "  Uncle  Tom."  That  is 

o 

something !  [Cheers.]  Let  me  say,  in  passing,  that  you 
will  nowhere,  find  an  earlier  or  more  generous  apprecia 
tion,  or  more  flowing  eulogy,  .of  these  men  and  their 
labors,  than  in  the  columns  of  the  Liberator.  No  one, 
however  feeble,  has  ever  peeped  or  muttered,  in  any  quar 
ter,  that  the  vigilant  eye  of  the  Pioneer  has  not  recog 
nized  him.  He  has  stretched  out  the  right  hand  of  a 
most  cordial  welcome  the  moment  any  man's  face  was 
turned  Zionward.  [Loud  cheers.] 

I  do  not  mention  these  things  to  praise  Mr.  Garrison , 
I  do  not  stand  here  for  that  purpose.  You  will  not  deny 
—  if  you  do,  I  can  prove  it  —  that  the  movement  of  the 
Abolitionists  converted  these  men.  Their  constituents 
were  converted  by  it.  The  assault  upon  the  right  of 
petition,  upon  the  right  to  print  and  speak  of  slavery,  the 
denial  of  the  right  of  Congress  over  the  District,  the 
annexation  of  Texas,  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  were  meas 
ures  which  the  antislavery  movement  provoked,  and  the 
discussion  of  which  has  made  all  the  Abolitionists  we~ 
have.  The  antislavery  cause,  then,  converted  these  men  ; 
it  gave  them  a  constituency  ;  it  gave  them  an  opportunity 
to  speak,  and  it  gave  them  a  public  to  listen.  The  anti- 
slavery  cause  gave  them  their  votes,  got  them  their 
offices,  furnished  them  their  facts,  gave  them  their  audi 
ence.  If  you  tell  me  they  cherished  all  these  principles 
in  their  own  breasts  before  Mr.  Garrison  appeared,  I  can 
only  say,  if  the  antislavery  movement  did  not  give  them 
their  ideas,  it  surely  gave  the  courage  to  utter  them. 

In  such  circumstances,  is  it  not  singular  that  the  name 


THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  137 

of  William  Lloyd  Garrison  has  never  been  pronounced  on 
the  floor  of  the  United  States  Congress  linked  with  any 
epithet  but  that  of  contempt !  No  one  of  those  men  who 
owt^  their  ideas,  their  station,  their  audience,  to  him,  have 
ever  thought  it  worth  their  while  to  utter  one  word  in 
grateful  recognition  of  the  power  which  called  them  into 
being.  When  obliged,  by  the  course  of  their  argument,  to 
treat  the  question  historically,  they  can  go  across  the  water 
to  Clarkson  and  Wilberforce,  —  yes,  to  a  safe  salt-water 
distance.  [Laughter.]  As  Daniel  Webster,  when  he  was 
talking  to  the  farmers  of  Western  New  York,  and  wished 
to  contrast  slave  labor  and  free  labor,  did  not  dare  to  com 
pare  New  York  with  Virginia,  —  sister  States,  under  the 
same  government,  planted  by  the  same  race,  worshipping 
at  the  same  altar,  speaking  the  same  language,  —  identi 
cal  in  all  respects,  save  that  one  in  which  he  wished  to 
seek  the  contrast ;  but  no  ;  he  compared  it  with  Cuba,  — 
[cheers  and  laughter,]  —  the  contrast  was  so  close  !  [Re 
newed  cheers.]  Catholic  —  Protestant ;  Spanish  —  Sax 
on  ;  despotism  —  municipal  institutions  ;  readers  of  Lope 
de  Vega  and  of  Shakespeare  ;  mutterers  of  the  Mass  — 
children  of  the  Bible  !  But  Virginia  is  too  near  home  ! 
So  is  Garrison  !  One  would  have  thought  there  was 
something  in  the  human  breast  which  would  sometimes 
break  through  policy.  These  noble-hearted  men  whom  I 
have  named  must  surely  have  found  quite  irksome  the 
constant  practice  of  what  Dr.  Gardiner  used  to  call  "  that 
despicable  virtue,  prudence  "  !  [Laughter.]  One  would 
have  thought,  when  they  heard  that  name  spoken  with 
contempt,  their  ready  eloquence  would  have  leaped  from 
its  scabbard  to  avenge  even  a  word  that  threatened  him 
with  insult.  But  it  never  came,  —  never  !  [Sensation.] 
I  do  not  say  I  blame  them.  Perhaps  they  thought  they 
should  serve  the  cause  better  by  drawing  a  broad  blaclv 
line  between  themselves  and  him.  Perhaps  they  thought 


138  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

the  Devil  could   be   cheated;  —  I  do  not  think  he  can. 
[Laughter  and  cheers.] 

We  are  perfectly  willing  —  I  am,  for  one  —  to  be  the 
dead  lumber  that  shall  make  a  path  for  these  men  into  the 
light  and  love  of  the  people.  We  hope  for  nothing  better. 
Use  us. freely,  in  any  way,  for  the  slave.  When  the  tem 
ple  is  finished,  the  tools  will  not  complain  that  they  are 
thrown  aside,  let  who  will  lead  up  the  nation  to  "  put  on 
the  topstone  with  shoutings."  But  while  so  much  re 
mains  to  be  done,  while  our  little  camp  is  beleaguered  all 
about,  do  nothing  to  weaken  his  influence,  whose  sagacity, 
more  than  any  other  single  man's,  has  led  us  up  hither, 
and  whose  name  is  identified  with  that  movement  which 
the  North  still  heeds,  and  the  South  still  fears  the  most. 
After  all,  Mr.  Chairman,  this  is  no  hard  task.  We  know 
very  well,  that,  notwithstanding  this  loud  clamor  about 
our  harsh  judgment  of  men  and  things,  our  opinions  differ 
very  little  from  those  of  our  Free  Soil  friends,  or  of  intel 
ligent  men  generally,  when  you  really  get  at  them.  It 
has  even  been  said,  that  one  of  that  family  which  "has 
made  itself  so  infamously  conspicuous  here  in  executing 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  a  judge,  whose  earnest  defence 
of  that  law  we  all  heard  in  Faneuil  Hall,  did  himself,  but 
a  little  while  before,  arrange  for  a  fugitive  to  be  hid  till 
pursuit  was  over.  I  hope  it  is  true,  —  it  would  be  an 
honorable  inconsistency.  And  if  it  be  not  true  of  him, 
we  know  it  is  of  others.  Yet  it  is  base  to  incite  others  to 
deeds,  at  which,  whenever  we  are  hidden  from  public 
notice,  our  own  hearts  recoil  !  But  thus  we  see  that 
when  men  lay  aside  the  judicial  ermine,  the  senator's 
robe,  or  the  party  collar,  and  sit  down  in  private  life,  you 
can  hardly  distinguish  their  tones  from  ours.  Their  eyes 
seem  as  anointed  as  our  own.  As  in  Pope's  day,  — 

"  At  all  we  laugh  they  laugh,  no  doubt ; 
The  only  difference  is,  we  dare  laugh  out." 


THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT. 

Caution  is  not  always  good  policy  in  a  cause  like  ours. 
It  is  said  that,  when  Napoleon  saw  the  day  going  against 
him,  he  used  to  throw  away  all  the  rules  of  war,  and 
trust  himself  to  the  hot  impetuosity  of  his  soldiers.  The 
masses  are  governed  more  by  impulse  than  conviction  ; 
and  even  were  it  not  so,  the  convictions  of  most  men  are 
on  our  side,  and  this  will  surely  appear,  if  we  can  only 
pierce  the  crust  of  their  prejudice  or  indifference.  I  I  ob 
serve  that  our  Free  Soil  friends  never  stir  their  audience 
so  deeply  as  when  some  individual  leaps  beyond  the  plat 
form,  and  strikes  upon  the  very  heart  of  the  people.  Men 
listen  to  discussions  of  laws  and  tactics  with  ominous  pa 
tience.  It  is  when  Mr.  Stunner,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  avows 
his  determination  to  disobey  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and 
cries  out,  "  I  was  a  man  before  I  was  a  Commissioner,"  — 
when  Mr.  Giddings  says  of  the  fall  of  slavery,  quoting 
Adams,  "  Let  it  come  ;  if  it  must  come  in  blood,  yet  I  say 
let  it  come  !  "  —  that  their  associates  on  the  platform  are 
sure  they  are  wrecking  the  party,  —  while  many  a  heart 
beneath  beats  its  first  pulse  of  antislavery  life. 

These  are  brave  words.  When  I  compare  them  with 
the  general  tone  of  Free  Soil  men  in  Congress,  I  distrust 
the  atmosphere  of  Washington  and  of  politics.  These 
men  move  about,  Sauls  and  Goliaths  among  vis,  taller  by 
many  a  cubit.  There  they  lose  port  and  stature.  Mr. 
S limner's  speech  in  the  Senate  unsays  no  part  of  his 
Faneuil  Hall  pledge.  But,  though  discussing  the  same 
topic,  no  one  would  gather  from  any  word  or  argument 
that  the  speaker  ever  took  such  ground  as  he  did  in 
Faneuil  Hall.  It  is  all  through,  the  law,  the  manner  of 
the  surrender,  not  the  surrender  itself,  of  the  slave,  that 
he  objects  to.  As  my  friend  Mr.  Pillsbury  so  forcibly 
says,  so  far  as  anything  in  the  speech  shows,  he  puts  the 
slave  behind  the  jury  trial,  behind  the  habeas  corpus  act, 
and  behind  the  new  interpretation  of  the  Constitution,  and 


140  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF 

says  to  the  slave  claimant :  "  You  must  get  through  all 
these,  before  you  reach  him  ;  but  if  you  can  get  through 
all  these,  you  may  have  him  !  "  It  was  no  tone  like  this 
which  made  the  old  Hall  rock !  Not  if  he  £ot  through 

O  £3 

twelve  jury  trials,  and  forty  habeas  corpus  acts,  and  con 
stitutions  built  high  as  yonder  monument,  would  he  per 
mit  so  much  as  the  shadow  of  a  little  finder  of  the  slave 

o 

claimant  to  touch  the  slave  !  [Loud  applause.]  At  least, 
so  he  was  understood.  In  an  elaborate  discussion,  by  the 
leader  of  the  political  antislavery  party,  of  the  whole 
topic  of  fugitive  slaves,  you  do  not  find  one  protest  against 
the  surrender  itself,  one  frank  expression  on  the  con 
stitutional  .clause,  or  any  indication  of  the  speaker's  final 
purpose,  should  any  one  be  properly  claimed  under  that 
provision.  It  was  under  no  such  uncertain  trumpet  that 
the  antislavery  host  was  originally  marshalled.  The  tone" 
is  that  of  the  German  soldiers  whom  Napoleon  routed. 
They  did  not  care,  they  said,  for  the  defeat,  but  only  that 
they  were  not  beaten  according  to  rule.  [Laughter  and 
cheers.]  Mr.  Mann,  in  his  speech  of  February  15,  1850, 
says  :  "  The  States  being  separated,  I  would  as  soon  re 
turn  my  own  brother  or  sister  into  bondage,  as  I  would 
return  a  fugitive  slave.  Before  God,  and  Christ,  and  all 
Christian  men,  they  are  my  brothers  and  sisters."  What 
a  condition  !  from  the  lips,  too,  of  a  champion  of  the 
Higher  Law  !  Whether  the  States  be  separate  or  united, 
neither  my  brother  nor  any  other  man's  brother  shall,  with 
my  consent,  go  back  to  bondage.  [Enthusiastic  cheers.] 
So  speaks  the  heart,  • —  Mr.  Mann's  version  is  that  of  the- 
politician. 

Mr.  Mann's  recent  speech  in  August,  1852,  has  the 
same  non-committal  tone  to  which  I  have  alluded  in  Mr. 
Sumner's.  While  professing,  in  the  most  eloquent  terms, 
his  loyalty  to  the  Higher  Law,  Mr.  Sutherland  asked  : 
"  Is  there,  in  Mr.  Mann's  opinion,  any  conflict  between 


THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  141 

that  Higher  Law  and  the  Constitution  ?  If  so,  what  is 
it  ?  If  not  so,  why  introduce  an  irrelevant  topic  into  the 
debate  ?  "  Mr.  Mann  avoided  any  reply,  and  asked  not 
to  be  interrupted  !  Is  that  the  frankness  which  becomes 
an  Abolitionist  ?  Can  such  concealment  help  any  cause  ? 
The  design  of  Mr.  Sutherland  is  evident.  If  Mr.  Mann 
had  allowed  there  was  no  conflict  between  the  Hio-her 

O 

Law  and  the  Constitution,  all  his  remarks  were  futile  and 
out  of  order.  But  if  he  asserted  that  any  such  conflict 
existed,  how  did  he  justify  himself  in  swearing  to  support 
that  instrument  ?  —  a  question  our  Free  Soil  friends  are 
slow  to  meet..'  Mr.  Mann  saw  the  dilemma,  an d_ji voided 
it  by  silence ! 

The  same  speech  contains  the  usual  deprecatory  asser 
tions  that  Free-Soilers  have  no  wish  to  interfere  with 
slavery  in  the  States  ;  that  they  "  consent  to  let  slavery 
remain  where  it  is."  If  he  means  that  he,  Horace  Mann, 
a  moral  and  .accountable  being,  "  consents  to  let  slavery 
remain  where  it  is,"  all  the  rest  of  his  speech  is  sound  and 
fury,  signifying  nothing.  If  he  means  that  he,  Horace 
Mann,  as  a  politician  and  party  man,  consents  to  that,  but, 
elsewhere  and  otherwise,  will  do  his  best  to  abolish  this 
"  all-comprehending  wickedness  of  slavery,  in  which  every 
wrong  ancPevery  crime  has  its  natural  home,"  then  he 
should  have  plainly  said  so.  Otherwise,  his  disclaimer  is 
unworthy  of  him,  and  could  have  deceived  no  one.  He 
must  have  known  that  all  the  South  care  for  is  the  action, 
not  in  what  capacity  the  deed  is  clone. 

Mr.  GicTdings  is  more  careful  in  his  statement;  but, 
judged  by  his -speech,  on  the  "  Platforms,"  how  little  does 
he  seem  to  understand  cither  his  own  duty  or  the  true 
philosophy  of  _the  cause  he  serves  !  He  says  :  — 

"  We,  Sir,  would  drive  the  slave  question  from  discussion  in 
tliis  hall.  It  never  had  a  constitutional  existence  here,  ^Sep 
arate  this  government  from  all  interference  with  slavery;  let 


142  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

the  Federal  power  wash  its  hands  from  that  institution  ;  let  us 
purify  ourselves  from  its  contagion ;  leave  it  with  the  States, 
who  alone  have  the  power  to  sustain  it,  —  then,  Sir,  will  agita 
tion  cease  in  regard  to  it  here  ;  then  we  shall  have  nothing  more 
to  do  with  it ;  our  time  will  be  no  more  occupied  with  it ;  and, 
like  a  band  of  freemen,  a  band  of  brothers,  we  could  meet  here, 
and  legislate  for  the  prosperity,  the  improvement  of  mankind, 
for  the  elevation  of  our  race." 

Mr.  Sumner  speaks  in  the  same  strain.     He  says :  — 

"  The  time  will  come  when  courts  or  Congress  will  declare, 
that  nowhere  under  the  Constitution  can  man  hold  property  in 
man.  For  the  republic,  such  a  decree  will  be  the  way  of  peace 
and  safety.  As  slavery  is  banished  from  the  national  jurisdic 
tion,  it  will  cease  to  vex  our  national  politics.  It  may  linger  in 
the  States  as  a  local  institution,  but  it  will  no  longer  endanger 

7  O  O 

national  animosities  when  it  no  longer  demands  national  sup 
port.  For  himself,  he  knows  no  better  aim  under  the 

Constitution  than  to  bring  the  government  back  to  the  precise 
position  which  it  occupied  "  when  it  was  launched. 

This  seems  to  me  a  very  mistaken  strain.  Whenever 
slavery  is  banished  from  our  national  jurisdiction,  it  will 
be  a  momentous  gain,  a  vast  stride.  But  let  us  not  mis 
take  the  haff-way  house  for  the  end  of  the  journey.  I 
need  not  say  that  it  matters  not  to  Abolitionists  under 
what  special  law  slavery  exists.  Their  battle  lasts  while 
it  exists  anywhere,  and  I  doubt  not  Mr.  Sumner  and  Mr. 
Giddings  feel  themselves  enlisted  for  the  whole  war.  I 
will  even  suppose,  what  neither  of  these  gentlemen  states, 
that  their  plan  includes,  not  only  that  slavery  shall  be 
abolished  in  the  District  and  Territories,  but  that  the  slave 
basis  of  representation  shall  be  struck  from  the  Constitu 
tion,  and  the  slave-surrender  clause  construed  away.  But 
even  then,  does  Mr.  Giddings  or  Mr.  Sumner  really  be 
lieve  that  slavery,  existing  in  its  full  force  in  the  States, 
"  will  cease  to  vex  our  national  politics "  ?  Can  they 


THE   ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  143 

point  to  any  State  where  a  powerful  oligarchy,  possessed 
of  immense  wealth,  has  ever  existed,  without  attempting  to 
meddle  in  the  government  ?  Even  now,  does  not  manufac 
turing,  banking,  and  commercial  capital  perpetually  vex 
our  politics  ?  Why  should  not  slave  capital  exert  the 
same  influence  ?  Do  they  imagine  that  a  hundred  thou 
sand  men,  possessed  of  two  thousand  millions  of  dollars, 
which  they  feel  the  spirit  of  the  age  is  seeking  to  tear 
from  their  grasp,  will  not  eagerly  catch  at  all  the  support 
they  can  obtain  by  getting  the  control  of  the  govern 
ment?  In  a  land  where  the  dollar  is  almighty,  "where 
the  sin  of  not  being  rich  is  only  atoned  for  by  the  effort 
to  become  so,"  do  they  doubt  that  such  an  oligarchy  will 
generally  succeed  ?  Besides,  banking  and  manufacturing 
stocks  are  not  urged  by  despair  to  seek  a  controlling  in 
fluence  in  politics.  They  know  they  are  about  equally 
safe,  whichever  party  rules,  —  that  no  party  wishes  to 
legislate  their  rights  away.  Slave  property  knows  that  its 
being  allowed  to  exist  depends  on  its  having  the  virtual 
conlriiLjo£-tJ^~govei-H«te-nt.  Its  constant  presence  in  pol 
itics  is_jdictated?  therefore,  by  despair,  as  well as-  by  the 
wisli  to  secure  fresh  privileges.  Money,  however,  is  not 
the  only  strength  of  the  Slave  Power.  That,  indeed, 
were  enough,  in  an  age  when  capitalists  are  our  feudal 
barons.  But,  though  driven  entirely  from  national  shelter, 
the  slaveholders  would  have  the  strength  of  old  associa 
tions,  and  of  peculiar  laws  in  their  own  States,  which 
gives  those  States  wholly  into  their  hands.  .  A  weaker 
prestige,  fewer  privileges,  and  less  comparative  wealth, 
have  enabled  the  British  aristocracy  to  rule  England  for 
two  centuries,  though  the  root  of  their  strength  was  cut 
at  Naseby.  It  takes  ages  for  deeply-rooted  institutions  to 
die  ;  and  driving  slavery  into  the  States  will  hardly  be  our 
$aj3ebj£.  Whoever,  therefore,  lays  the  flattering  unction 
to  his  soul,  that7~while  slavery  exists  anywhere  in  the 


144  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF 

States,  pur  legislators  will  sit  down  "  like  a  band  of  broth 
ers,"  —  unless  they  are  all  slaveholding  brothers,  —  is 
doomed  to  find  himself  wofully  mistaken.  Mr.  Adams, 
ten  years  ago,  refused  to  sanction  this  doctrine  of  his 
friend,  Mr.  Giddings,  combating  it  ably  and  eloquently  in 
his  well-known  reply  to  Ingersoll.  Though  Mr  Adams 
touches  on  but  one  point,  the  principle  he  lays  down  has 
many  other  applications. 

But  is  Mr.  Giddings  willing  to  sit  down  with  slave 
holders,  "like  a  band  of  brothers,"  and  not  seek,  knowing 
all  the  time  that  they  are  tyrants  at  home,  to  use  the 
common  strength  to  protect  their  victims  ?  Does  he  not 
know  that  it  is  impossible  for  Free  States  and  Slave  States 
to  unite  under  any  form  of  Constitution,  no  matter  how 
clean  the  parchment  may  be,  without  the  compact  re 
sulting  in  new  strength  to  the  slave  system  ?  (It  is  the 
unimpaired  strength  of  Massachusetts  and  New  York, 
and  the  youthful  vigor  of  Ohio,  that,  even  now,  enable 
bankrupt  Carolina  to  hold  up  the  institution.  _Erery 
nation  must  maintain  peace  within  her  limits.  No  gov 
ernment  can~exist  which  does  not  fulfil  that.Jkoction. 
When  we  say  the  Union  will  maintain  peace  in  Carolina, 
that  being  a  Slave  State,  what  does  "peace  "  mean  ?  It 
means  keeping  the  slave  bene'ath  the  heel  of  his  master. 
Now,  even  on  the  principle  of  two  wrongs  making  a  right, 
if  we  put  this  great  weight  of  a  common  government  into 
the  scale  of  the  slaveholder,  we  are  bound  to  add  some 
thing  equal  to  the  slave's  side. ^v  But  no,  Mr.  Giddings  is 
content  to  give  the  slaveholder  the  irresistible  and  organic 
help  of  a  common  government,  and  bind  himself  to  utter 
no  word,  and  move  not  a  finger,  in  his  civil  capacity,  to 
help  the  slave  !  An  Abolitionist  would  find  himself  not 
much  at  home,  I  fancy,  in  that  "band  of  brothers  "  ! 

And  Mr.  Sumner  "  knows  no  better  aim,  under  the 
Constitution,  than  to  bring  back  the  government "  to 


THE   ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  145 

where  it  was  in  1789 !  Has  the  voyage  been  so  very 
honest  and  prosperous  a  one,  in  his  opinion,  that  his  only 
wish  is  to  start  again  with  the  same  ship,  the  same  crew, 
and  the  same  sailing-orders  ?  Grant  all  he  claims  as  to 
the  state  of  public  opinion,  the  intentions  of  leading  men, 
and  the  form  of  our  institutions  at  that  period  ;  still,  with 
all  these  checks  on  wicked  men,  and  helps  to  good  ones, 
here  we  are,  in  1853,  according  to  his  own  showing,  ruled 
by  slavery,  tainted  to  the  core  with  slavery,  and  binding  the 
infamous  Fugitive  Slave  Law  like  an  honorable  frontlet 
on  our  brows !  The  more  accurate  and  truthful  his  glow 
ing  picture  of  the  public  virtue  of  1789,  the  stronger  my 
argument.  If  even  all  those  great  patriots,  and  all  that 
enthusiasm  for  justice  and  liberty,  did  not  avail  to  keep  us 
safe  in  such  a  Union4  what  will  ?  In  such  desperate,  cir 
cumstances,  can  his  statesmanship  devise  no  better  aim 
than  to  try  the  same  experiment  over  again,  under  pre 
cisely  the  same  conditions  ?  What  new  guaranties  does 
he  propose  to  prevent  the  voyage  from  being  again  turned 
into  a  piratical  slave-trading  cruise  ?  None  !  Have  sixty 
years  taught  us  nothing  ?  In  1660,  the  English  thought, 
in  recalling  Charles  II.,  that  the  memory  of  that  scaffold 
which  had  once  darkened  the  windows  of  Whitehall 
would  be  guaranty  enough  for  his  good  behavior.  But, 
spite  of  the  spectre,  Charles  II.  repeated  Charles  I.,  and 
James  outdid  him.  Wiser  by  this  experience,  when  the 
nation,  in  1689,  got  another  chance,  they  trusted  to  no 
guaranties,  but  so  arranged  the  very  elements  of  their 
government  that  William  III.  could  not  repeat  Charles  I. 
Let  us  profit  by  the  lesson.  These  mistakes  of  leading 
men  merit  constant  attention.  Such  remarks  as  those  I 
have  quoted,  uttered  from  the  high  places  of  political  life, 
however  carefully  guarded,  have  a  sad  influence  on  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  party.  The  antislavery  awakening 
has  cost  too  many  years  and  too  much  labor  to  risk  letting 
10 


146  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF 

its  energy  be  turned  into  a  wrong  channel,  or  balked  by 
fruitless  experiments.  Neither  the  slave  nor  the  country 
must  be  cheated  a  second  time. 

Mr.  Chairman,  when  I  remember  the  grand  port  of 
these  men  elsewhere,  and  witness  this  confusion  of  ideas, 
and  veiling  of  their  proud  crests  to  party  necessities,  they 
seem  to  me  to  lose  in  Washington  something  of  their  old 
giant  proportions.  How  often  have  we  witnessed  this 
change  !  It  seems  the  inevitable  result  of  political  life 
under  any  government,  but  especially  under  ours  ;  and 
we  are  surprised  at  it  in  these  men,  only  because  we 
fondly  hoped  they  would  be  exceptions  to  the  general 
It  was  Chamfort,  I  think,  who  first  likened  a  republican 
senate-house  to  Milton's  Pandemonium  ;  —  another  proof 
of  the  rare  insight  French  writers  have  shown  in  criticising 
republican  institutions.  The  Capitol  at  Washington  al 
ways  brings  to  my  mind  that  other  Capitol,  which  in  Mil 
ton's  great  epic  "  rose  like  an  exhalation "  "  from  the 
burning  marl,"  —  that  towering  palace,  "  with  starry 
lamps  and  blazing  cressets  "  hung,  —  with  "  roof  of  fretted 
gold  "  and  stately  height,  its  hall  "  like  a  covered  field." 
You  remember,  Sir,  the  host  of  archangels  gathered  round 
it,  and  how  thick  the  airy  crowd 

"  Swarmed  and  were  straitened ;  till,  the  signal  given, 
Behold  a  wonder  !     They  but  now  who  seemed 
In  bigness  to  surpass  earth's  giant  sons, 
Now  less  than  smallest  dwarfs,  in  narrow  room 
Throng  numberless,  like  that  pygmean  race 
Beyond  the  Indian  mount ;  or  fairy  elves, 
Whose  midnight  revels,  by  a  forest  side 
Or  fountain,  some  belated  peasant  sees. 

Thus  incorporeal  spirits  to  smallest  forms 
Reduced  their  shapes  immense,  and  were  at  large, 
Though  without  number  still,  amid  the  hall 
Of  that  infernal  court." 

Mr.   Chairman,    they   got   no   further   than   the   hall 


THE   ABOLITION   MOVEMENT.  147 

[Cheers.]  They  were  not,  in  the  current  phrase,  "  a 
healthy  party  "  /  The  healthy  party  —  the  men  who 
made  no  compromise  in  order  to  come  under  that  arch  — 
Milton  describes  further  on,  where  he  says  : 

"  But  far  within, 

And  in  their  own  dimensions,  like  themselves, 

The  great  seraphic  lords  and  cherubim, 

In  close  recess  and  secret  conclave,  sat ; 

A  thousand  demigods  on  golden  seats 

Frequent  and  full." 

-These  were  the  healthy  party  T  [Loud  applause.]  These 
are  the  Casses  and  the  Houstons,  the  Footes  and  the 
Soulds,  the  Clays,  the  Websters,  and  the  Douglases,  that 
bow  no  lofty  forehead  in  the  dust,  but  can  find  ample 
room  and  verge  enough  under  the  Constitution.  Our 
friends  go  down  there,  and  must  be  dwarfed  into  pygmies 
before  they  can  find  space  within  the  lists !  .  [Cheers.] 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  say  that  we  grant  the  entire 
sincerity  and  true-heartedness  of  these  men.  But  in 
critical  times,  when  a  wrong  step  entails  most  disastrous 
consequences,  to  "  mean  well  "  is  not  enough.  Sincerity 
is  no  shield  for  any  man  from  the  criticism  of  his  fellow- 
laborers.  I  do  not  fear  that  such  men  as  these  will  take 
offence  at  our  discussion  of  their  views  and  conduct. 
Long  years  of  hard  labor,  in  which  we  have  borne  at  least 
our  share,  have  resulted  in  a  golden  opportunity.  How 
to  use  it,  friends  differ.  Shall  we  stand  courteously  silent, 
and  let  these  men  play  out  the  play,  when,  to  our  think 
ing,  their  plan  will  slacken  the  zeal,  balk  the  hopes,  and 
waste  the  efforts  of  .the  Cave's  friends  ?  No  !  I  know 
Charles  Sumner's  love  for  the  cause  so  well,  that  I  am 
sure  he  will  welcome  my  criticism  whenever  I  deem  his 
counsel  wrong  ;  that  he  will  hail  every  effort  to  serve  OUF 
common  client  more  efficiently.  [Great  cheering.]  It  is 
not  his  honor  nor  mine  that  is  at  issue  ;  not  his  feeling  nor 
mine  that  is  to  be  consulted.  The  only  question  for  either 


148  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF 

of  us  is,  What  in  these  golden  moments  can  be  done  ? 
where  can  the  hardest  blow  be  struck  ?  [Loud  applause.] 
I  hope  I  am  just  to  Mr.  Sumner  ;  I  have  known  him  long, 
and  honor  him.  I  know  his  genius,  I  honor  his  virtues ; 
yet  if,  from  his  high  place,  he  sends  out  counsels  which  I 
think  dangerous  to  the  cause,  I  am  bound  to  raise  my 
voice  against  them.  I  do  my  duty  in  a  private  communi 
cation  to  him  first,  then  in  public  to  his  friends  and  mine. 
The  friendship  that  will  not  bear  this  criticism  is  but  the 
frost-work  of  a  winter's  morning,  which  the  sun  looks 
upon  and  it  is  gone.  His  friendship  will  survive  all  that 
I  say  of  him,  and  mine  will  survive  all  that  he  shall  say 
of  me  ;  and  this  is  the  only  way  in  which  the  antislavery 
cause  can  be  served.  Truth,  success,  victory,  triumph 
over  the  obstacles  that  beset  us,  —  this  is  all  either  of  us 
wants.  [Cheers.] 

If  all  I  have  said  to  you  is  untrue,  if  I  have  exag 
gerated,  explain  to  me  this  fact.  In  1831,  Mr.  Garrison 
commenced  a  paper  advocating  the  doctrine  of  immediate 
emancipation.  He  had  against  him  the  thirty  thousand 
churches  and  all  the  clergy  of  the  country,  —  its  wealth, 
its  commerce,  its  press.  In  1831,  what  was  the  state  of 
things  ?  There  was  the  most  entire  ignorance  and  apathy 
on  the  slave  question.  If  men  knew  of  the  existence  of 
slavery,  it  was  only  as  a  part  of  picturesque  Virginia  life. 
No  one  preached,  no  one  talked,  no  one  wrote  about  it. 
No  whisper  of  it  stirred  the  surface  of  the  political  sea. 
The  Church  heard  of  it  occasionally,  when  some  coloniza 
tion  agent  asked  funds  to  send  the  blacks  to  Africa.  Old 
school-books  tainted  with  some  antislavery  selections  had 
passed  out  of  use,  and  new  ones  were  compiled  to  suit  the 
times.  Soon  as  any  dissent  from  the  prevailing  faith  ap 
peared,  every  one  set  himself  to  crush  it.  The  pulpits 
preached  at  it ;  the  press  denounced  it ;  mobs  tore  down 
houses,  threw  presses  into  the  fire  and  the  stream,  and 


THE   ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  149 

shot  the  editors ;  religious  conventions  tried  to  smother  it ; 
parties  arrayed  themselves  against  it.  Daniel  Webster 
boasted  in  the  Senate,  that  he  had  never  introduced  the 
subject  of  slavery  to  that  body,  and  never  would.  Mr. 
Clay,  in  1839,  makes  a  speech  for  the  Presidency,  in 
which  he  says,  that  to  discuss  the  subject  of  slavery  is 
moral  treason,  and  that  no  man  has  a  right  to  introduce 
the  subject  into  Congress.  Mr.  Benton,  in  1844,  laid 
down  his  platform,  and  he  not  only  denies  the  right,  but 
asserts  that  he  never  has  and  never  will  discuss  the  sub 
ject.  Yet  Mr.  Clay,  from  1839  down  to  his  death,  hardly 
made  a  remarkable  speech  of  any  kind,  except  on  slavery. 
Mr.  Webster,  having  indulged  now  and  then  in  a  little 
easy  rhetoric,  as  at  Niblo's  and  elsewhere,  opens  his  mouth 
in  1840,  generously  contributing  his  aid  to  both  sides,  and 
stops  talking  about  it  only  when  death  closes  his  lips.  Mr. 
Benton's  six  or  eight  speeches  in  the  United  States  Senate 
have  all  been  on  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  Southwestern 
section  of  the  country,  and  form  the  basis  of  whatever 
claim  he  has  to  the  character  of  a  statesman,  and  he  owes 
his  seat  in  the  next  Congress  somewhat,  perhaps,  to  anti- 
slavery  pretensions  !  The  Whig  and  Democratic  parties 
pledged  themselves  just  as  emphatically  against  the  anti- 
slavery  discussion,  —  against  agitation  and  free  speech. 
These  men  said  :  "  It  sha'n't  be  talked  about,  it  won't  be 
talked  about!"  These  are  your  statesmen i :  —  men  who 
understand  the  present,  that  is,  and  mould  the  future  ! 
The  man  who  understands  his  own  time,  and  whose  genius 
moulds  the  future  to  his  views,  he  is  a  statesman,  is  he 
not  ?  These  men  devoted  themselves  to  banks,  to  the 
tariff,  to  internal  improvements,  to  constitutional  and 
financial  questions.  They  said  to  slavery :  "  Back  !  no 
entrance  here  !  We  pledge  ourselves  against  you."  And 
then  there  came  up  a  humble  printer-boy,  who  whipped 
them  into  the  traces,  and  made  them  talk,  like  Hotspur's 


150  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

starling,  nothing  BUT  slavery.  He  scattered  all  these 
gigantic  shadows,  —  tariff,  bank,  constitutional  questions, 
financial  questions,  —  and  slavery,  like  the  colossal  head  in 
Walpole's  romance,  came  up  and  filled  the  whole  political 
horizon  !  [Enthusiastic  applause.]  Yet  you  must  remem 
ber  he  is  not  a  statesman  ;  he  is  a  "  fanatic."  He  has  no 
discipline,  —  Mr.  "Ion"  says  so;  he  does  not  understand 
the  "  discipline  that  is  essential  tcTvictory  "  !  This  man 
did  not  understand  his  own  time,  —  he  did  not  know  what 
the  future  was  to  be,  —  he  was  not  able  to  shape  it,  —  he 
had  no  "  prudence,"  —  he  had  no  "  foresight "  I  Daniel 
Webster  says,  "  I  have  never  introduced  this  subject,  and 
never  will,"  —  and  died  broken-hearted  because  he  had 
not  been  able  to  talk  enough  about  it.  Benton  says,  "  I 
will  never  speak  of  slavery,"  and  lives  to  break  with 
his  party  on  this  issue  !  Mr.  Clay  says  it  is  "  moral  trea 
son  "  to  introduce  the  subject  into  Congress,  and  lives  to 
see  Congress  turned  into  an  antislavery  debating-society, 
to  suit  the  purpose  of  one  "  too  powerful  individual  "  ! 

These  were  statesmen,  mark  you!  Two  of  them  have 
gone  to  their  graves  covered  with  eulogy ;  and  our  na 
tional  stock  of  eloquence  is  all  insufficient  to  describe  how 
profound  and  far-reaching  was  the  sagacity  of  Daniel 
Webster  !  Remember  who  it  was  that  said,  in  1831,  "  I 
am  in  earnest,  —  I  will  not  equivocate, — I  will  not 
excuse,  —  I  will  not  retreat  a  single  inch,  —  and  I  tvill  be 
heard!"  [Repeated  cheers.]  That  speaker  has  lived 
twenty-two  years,  and  the  complaint  of  twenty-three 
millions  of  people  is,  "  Shall  we  never  hear  of  anything 
but  slavery  ?  "  [Cheers.]  I  heard  Dr.  Kirk,  of  Boston, 
say  in  his  own  pulpit,  when  he  returned  from  London,  — 
where  he  had  been  as  a  representative  to  the  "  Evangeli 
cal  Alliance,"  —  "I  went  up  to  London,  and  they  asked 
me  what  I  thought  of  the  question  of  immediate  emancipa 
tion.  They  examined  us  all.  Is  an  American  never  to 


THE  ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  151 

travel  anywhere  in  the  world  but  men  will  throw  this 
troublesome  question  in  his  face  ?  "  Well,  it  is  all  HIS 
fault  [pointing  to  Mr.  Garrison].  [Enthusiastic  cheers.] 

Now,  when  we  come  to  talk  of  statesmanship,  of  sagacity 
in  choosing  time  and  measures,  of  endeavor,  by  proper 
means,  to  right  the  public  mind,  of  keen  insight  into  the 
present  and  potent  sway  over  the  future,  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  Abolitionists,  who  have  taken  —  whether  for  good 
or  for  ill,  whether  to  their  discredit  or  to  their  praise  — 
this  country  by  the  four  corners,  and  shaken  it  until  you 
can  hear  nothing  but  slavery,  whether  you  travel  in  rail 
road  or  steamboat,  whether  you  enter  the  hall  of  legisla 
tion  or  read  the  columns  of  a  newspaper,  —  it  seems  to  me 
that  such  men  may  point  to  the  present  aspect  of  the 
nation,  to  their  originally  avowed  purpose,  to  the  pledges 
and  efforts  of  all  your  great  men  against  them,  and  then 
let  you  determine  to  which  side  the  credit  of  sagacity  and 
statesmanship  belongs.  Napoleon  busied  himself,  at  St. 
Helena,  in  showing  how  Wellington  ought  not  to  have 
conquered  at  Waterloo.  The  world  has  never  got  time 
to  listen  to  the  explanation.  Sufficient  for  it  that  the 
Allies  entered  Paris.  In  like  manner,  it  seems  hardly 
the  province  of  a  defeated  Church  and  State  to  deny  the 
skill  of  measures  by  which  they  have  been  conquered. 

It  may  sound-  strange  to  some,  this  claim  for  Mr.  Garri 
son  of  a  profound  statesmanship.  Men  have  heard  him 
styled  a  mere  fanatic  so  long,  that  they  are  incompetent  to 
judge  him  fairly.  "  The  phrases  men  are  accustomed," 
says  Goethe,  "  to  repeat  incessantly,  end  by  becoming 
convictions,  and  ossify  the  organs  of  intelligence."  I 
cannot  accept  you,  therefore,  as  my  jury.  I  appeal  from 
Festus  to  Ca3sar ;  from  the  prejudice  of  our  streets  to  the 
common  sense  of  the  world,  and  to  your  children. 

Every  thoughtful  and  unprejudiced  mind  must  see  that 
such  an  evil  as  slavery  will  yield  only  to  the  most  radical 


152        .  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

treatment^  If  you  consider  the  work  we  have  to  do,  you 
will  not  tKirtk  us  needlessly  aggressive,  or  that  we  dig 
down  unnecessarily  deep  in  laying  the  foundations  of  our 
enterprise.  A  money  power  of  two  thousand  millions  of 
dollars,  as  the  prices  of  slaves  now  range,  held  by  a  small 
body  of  able  and  desperate  men  ;  that  body  raised  into  a 
political  aristocracy  by  special  constitutional  provisions  ; 
cotton,  the  product  of  slave  labor,  forming  the  basis  of  our 
whole  foreign  commerce,  and  the  commercial  class  thus 
subsidized ;  the  press  bought  up,  the  pulpit  reduced  to 
vassalage,  the  heart  of  the  common  people  chilled  by  a 
bitter  prejudice  against  the  black  race  ;  our  leading  men 
bribed,  by  ambition,  either  to  silence  or  open  hostility ;  — 
in  such  a  land,  on  what  shall  an  Abolitionist  rely  ?  On 
a  few  cold  prayers,  mere  lip-service,  and  never  from  the 
heart  ?  On  a  church  resolution,  hidden  often  in  its  rec 
ords,  and  meant  only  as  a  decent  cover  for  servility  in 
daily  practice  ?  On- political  parties,  with  their  superficial 
influence  at  best,  and  seeking  ordinarily  only  to  use  ex 
isting  prejudices  to  the  best  advantage?  Slavery  has 
deeper  root  here  than  any  aristocratic  institution  has  in 
Europe ;  and  politics  is  but  the  common  pulse-beat,  of 
which  revolution  is  the  fever-spasm.  Yet  we  have  seen 
European  aristocracy  survive  storms  which  seemed  to 
reach  down  to  the  primal  strata  of  European  life.  ....  JShall 
we,  then,  trust  to  mere  politics,  where  even  revolution 
has  failed  ?  How  shall  the  stream  rise  above  its  foun 
tain  ?  Where  shall  our  church  organizations  or  parties 
get  strength  to  attack  their  great  parent  and  moulder,  the 
Slave  Power  ?  Shall  the  thing  formed  say  to  him  that 
jbrmed  it,  Why  hast  thou  made  me  thus  ?  The  old  jest 
of  one  who  tried  to  lift  himself  in  his  own  basket,  is  but  a 
tame  picture  of  the  man  who  imagines  that,  by  working 
solely  through  existing  sects  and  parties,  he  can  destroy 
slavery.  Mechanics  say  nothing  but  an  earthquake, 


THE   ABOLITION  MOVEMENT.  153 

strong  enough  to  move  all  Egypt,  can  bring  down  the 
Pyramids. 

Experience  has  confirmed  these  views.  The  Aboli 
tionists  who  have  acted  on  them  have  a  "  short  method  " 
with  all  unbelievers.  They  have  but  to  point  to  their 
own  success,  in  contrast  with  every  other  man's  failure. 
To  waken  the  nation  to  its  real  state,  and  chain  it  to  the 
consideration  of  this  one  duty,  is  half  the  work.  So  much 
we  have  done.  Slavery  has  been  made  the  question  of 
this  generation.  To  startle  the  South  to  madness,  so  that 
every  step  she  takes,  in  her  blindness,  is  one  step  more 
toward  ruin,  is  much.  This  we  have  done.  Witness 
Texas  and  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  To  have  elaborated 
for  the  nation  the  only  plan  of  redemption,  pointed  out  the 
only  exodus  from  this  "sea  of  troubles,"  is  much.  This 
we  claim  to  have  done  in  our  motto  of  IMMEDIATE,  UN 
CONDITIONAL  EMANCIPATION  ON  THE  SOIL.  The  closer 
any  statesmanlike  mind  looks  into  the  question,  the  more 
favor  our  plan  finds  with  it.  The  Christian  asks  fairly 
of  the  infidel,  "  If  this  religion  be  not  from  God,  how  do 
you  explain  its  triumph,  and  the  history  of  the  first  three 
centuries  ?  "  Our  question  is  similar.  If  our  agitation  has 
not  been  wisely  planned  and  conducted,  explain  for  us  the 
history  of  the  last  twenty  years  !  Experience  is  a  safe 
light  to  walk  by,  and  he  is  not  a  rash  man  who  expects 
success  in  future  from  the  same  means  which  have  secured 
it  in  times  past. 


REMOVAL  OF  JUDGE  LORING.* 


MR.  CHAIRMAN  AND  GENTLEMEN:  The  peti 
tions  offered  you  on  any  one  topic  are  usually  all  in 
the  same  words.  On  the  present  occasion,  I  observe  on 
your  table  twelve  or  fourteen  different  forms.  This  is 
very  significant.  It  shows  they  do  not  proceed  from  a 
central  committee,  which  has  been  organized  to  rouse  the 
Commonwealth.  They  speak  the  instinctive,  irrepressible 
wish  of  all  parts  of  the  State.  It  is  the  action  of  persons 
of  different  parties,  sects,  and  sections,  moving  indepen 
dently  of  each  other,  but  seeking  the  same  object.  Some 
persons  have  sneered  at  these  petitions  because  women  are 
found  among  the  signers.  Neither  you,  Gentlemen,  nor 
the  Legislature,  will  maintain  that  women,  that  is,  just 
one  half  of  the  Commonwealth,  have  no  right  to  petition. 
A  civil  right,  which  no  one  denies  even  to  foreigners,  will 
not  certainly  be  denied  to  the  women  of  Massachusetts. 
And  is  there  any  one  thoughtless  enough  to  affirm  that 
this  is  not  a  proper  occasion  for  women  to  exercise  their 
rights  ?  These  petitions  ask  the  removal  of  a  Judge  of 
Probate.  Probate  judges  are  the  guardians  of  widows 
and  orphans.  Women  have  a  peculiar  interest  in  the 
character  of  such  judges.  He  chooses  an  exceedingly  bad 
occasion  to  laugh,  who  laughs  when  the  women  of  the 

*  Argument  before  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  Legislature,  in  Support  of  the  Petitions  for  the  Removal  of  Edward 
Greely  Loring  from  the  Office  of  Judge  of  Probate,  February  20,  1855. 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING.  155 

Commonwealth  ask  you  to  remove  a  Judge  of  Probate, 
who  has  shown  that  he  is  neither  a  humane  man  nor  a 
good  lawyer.  In  the  whole  of  my  remarks,  Gentlemen,  I 
beg  you  to  bear  in  mind  that  we,  the  petitioners,  are  ask 
ing  you  to  remove,  not  a  judge  merely,  but  a  Judge  of 
Prolate.  A  magistrate  who  is,  in  a  peculiar  sense,  the 
counsellor  of  the  widow  and  the  fatherless. 

The  family,  in  the  moment  of  terrible  bereavement  and 
distress,  must  first  stand  before  him.  To  his  discretion  and 
knowledge  are  committed  most  delicate  questions,  large 
amounts  of  property,  and  very  dear  and  vastly  important 
family  relations.  Surely,  that  should  not  be  a  rude  hand 
which  is  thrust  among  chords  that  have  just  been  sorely 
wrung.  Surely,  he  should  be  a  wise  and  most  trustworthy 
man  who  is  to  settle  questions  on  many  of  which,  from  the 
nature  of  the  case,  there  can,  practically,  be  no  appeal. 
His  court  is  not  watched  by  a  jury.  It  is  silent  and 
private,  and  has  little  publicity  in  its  proceedings.  He 
should  be,  therefore,  most  emphatically  a  magistrate  able 
to  stand  alone ;  whose  rigid  independence  cannot  be  over 
awed  or  swayed  by  cunning  or  able  individuals  about  him  ; 
one  skilful  in  the  law,  and  who,  while  he  holds  the  scales 
of  justice  most  exactly  even,  has  a  tender  and  humane 
heart ;  one  whose  generous  instincts  need  no  prompting 
from  without. 

Some  object  that  this  petition  asks  you  to  do  an  act  fa 
tal,  they  say,  to  the  independence  of  the  judiciary.  The 
petitioners  are  asked  whether  they  do  not  know  the  value 
and  importance  of  an  independent  judiciary.  Mr.  Chair 
man,  we  are  fully  aware  of  its  importance.  We  know  as 
well  as  our  fellow-citizens  the  unspeakable  value  of  a  high- 
minded,  enlightened,  humane,  independent,  and  just  judge ; 
one  whom  neither  "  fear,  favor,  affection,  nor  hope  of  re 
ward  "  can  turn  from  his  course.  It  is  because  we  are 
so  fully  impressed  with  this,  that  we  appear  before  you. 


156  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORINQ. 

Taking  our  history  as  a  whole,  we  are  proud  of  the  Bench 
of  Massachusetts.  You  have  given  no  higher  title  than 
that  of  a  Massachusetts  Judge  to  Sewall,  to  Sedgwick,  to 
Parsons.  Take  it  away,  then,  from  one  who  volunteers, 
hastens,  to  execute  a  statute  which  the  law  as  well  as 
the  humanity  of  the  nineteenth  century  regards  as  infa 
mous  and  an  outrage.  We  come  before  you,  not  to  attack 
the  Bench,  but  to  strengthen  it,  by  securing  it  the  only 
support  it  can  have  under  a  government  like  ours,  —  the 
confidence  of  the  people.  You  cannot  legislate  judges 
into  the  confidence  of  the  people.  You  cannot  preach 
them  into  it ;  confidence  must  be  earned.  To  make  the 
name  of  judge  respected,  it  must  be  worthy  of  respect,  — 
must  never  be  borne  by  unworthy  men.  It  never  will  be 
either  respected  or  respectable  while  this  man  bears  it. 
I  might  surely  ask  his  removal  in  the  names  of  the  Judges 
of  Massachusetts,  who  must  feel  that  this  man  is  no  fit 
fellow  for  them.  The  special  reasons  why  we  deem  him 
an  unfit  judge,  I  shall  take  occasion  to  state  by  and  by. 
At  present,  I  will  only  add,  that  it  is  not,  as  report  says, 
merely  because  he  differs  from  us  on  the  question  of  slav 
ery,  that  we  ask  his  removal.  It  is  not  for  an  honest  or 
for  any  other  difference  of  opinion  that  we  ask  it ;  but, 
as  we  shall  presently  take  occasion  to  state,  for  far  other 
and  very  grave  reasons. 

I  do  not  know,  Gentlemen,  what  course  of  remark  the 
remonstrant,  or  his  counsel,  may  adopt  ;  but  I  have 
thought  it  necessary  to  say  so  much,  in  order  that  they 
may  understand  our  position,  and  thus  avoid  any  needless 
enlargement  upon  our  want  of  respect  for  the  function,  or 
appreciation  of  the  value,  of  an  independent,  high-minded 
judiciary.  You  will  see,  in  the  course  of  my  remarks, 
that  it  is  because  this  incumbent  has  sinned  in  that  very 
respect  that  we  appear  here. 

Gentlemen,  these  petitions,  though  variously  worded, 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE    LORING.  lfc>  I 

all  ask  you  to  "  take  proper  steps  for  the  removal  of  Edward 
Greely  Loring  from  office,"  —  "proper  steps"  It  is  for 
the  Legislature  to  decide  what  the  "  proper  steps "  are. 

In  offering  some  remarks  on  the  proper  method  of  pro 
cedure  in  this  case,  you  will  bear  in  mind  that  I  neces 
sarily,  perhaps,  go  over  more  ground  than  the  progress  of 
this  discussion  may  show  to  have  been  necessary ;  because, 
of  course,  I  must  be  entirely  ignorant  what  ground  the 
remonstrant,  or  his  counsel,  will  take.  I  must,  therefore, 
cover  all  the  ground. 

You  are  of  course  aware,  Gentlemen,  that,  originally,  all 
judges  were  appointed  by  the  king,  and  held  their  offices 
as  long  and  on  such  conditions  as  he  pleased  to  prescribe. 
Some  held  as  long  as  they  behaved  well,  —  during  good 
behavior i  as  our  Constitution  translates  the  old  law  Latin, 
quamdiu  se  bene  gesserint ;  others  held  during  the  pleasure 
of  the  king,  —  durante  bene  placito,  as  the  phrase  is.  This, 
of  course,  made  the  judges  entirely  the  creatures  of  the 
king.  To  prevent  this,  and  secure  the  independence  of 
the  judges,  after  the  English  Revolution  of  1689,  it  was 
fixed  by  the  Act  of  Settlement,  as  it  is  called,  that  the 
king  should  not  have  the  power  to  remove  judges,  but  that 
they  should  hold  their  offices  "  during  good  behavior" 
They  were  still,  however,  removable  by  the  king,  on  ad 
dress  from  both  Houses  of  Parliament. 

Hallam,  in  his  Constitutional  History,  states  very  tersely 
the  exact  state  of  the  English  law,  and  it  is  precisely  the 
law  of  this  Commonwealth  also,  in  these  words :  "  No 
judge  can  be  dismissed  from  office  except  in  consequence 
of  a  conviction  for  some  offence,  OR  the  address  of  both 
Houses  of  Parliament,  which  is  tantamount  to  an  act  of 
Legislature."  (Const.  Hist.,  Am.  edit,,  p.  597.) 

To  come  now  to  our  Commonwealth.  There  are,  as  I 
just  intimated,  two  ways  of  removing  a  judge  known  to 
the  Constitution  :  one  is,  by  impeachment ;  and  the  other 


158  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING. 

is,  by  address  of  the  Legislature  to  the  Governor.  A 
judge  who  commits  a  crime,  whether  in  his  official  capa 
city  or  not,  may  be  punished  by  indictment,  precisely  as 
any  other  man  may,  —  this  principle  may  be  left  out  of 
the  question.  A  judge,  who,  sitting  on  the  bench,  trans 
gresses  the  laws  in  his  official  capacity,  may  be  impeached 
by  the  House  of  Representatives  before  the  Senate,  as  a 
Court  of  Impeachment,  and  removed.  (Const.  Mass., 
Chap.  I.  Sec.  2,  Art.  8.) 

The  petitioners  do  not  ask  you  to  impeach  Judge  Lo- 
ring.  Why  ?  Because  they  do  not  come  here  to  say  that 
he  has  been  guilty  of  official  misconduct.  To  render  a 
judge  liable  to  impeachment,  he  must  be  proved  to  have 
misconducted  in  his  official  capacity.  I  shall  not  go  into 
the  niceties  of  the  law  of  impeachment.  One  would  sup 
pose,  from  the  arguments  of  the  press  at  the  present  time, 
and  their  comments  on  Mr.  Loring's  remonstrance,  that  a 
judge  could  not  be  impeached  unless  he  had  violated  some 
express  law.  This  is  not  so.  It  has  been  always  held, 
that  a  judge  may  be  guilty  of  official  misconduct,  and  liable 
to  impeachment,  who  had  not  violated  any  positive  statute. 
It  is  enough  that  the  act  violates  the  principles  of  the 
common  law.  All  authorities  agree  in  this,  and  some 
would  seem  to  lay  down  the  rule  still  more  broadly.  (See 
Story  on  the  Const.,  Bk.  III.  ch.  10,  §§  796-798,  and 
Shaw's  argument  when  counsel  against  Prescott,  Prescott's 
Trial,  p.  180.)  As  the  Constitution  confines  the  process 
of  impeachment  to  cases  of  official  misconduct,  and  as  we 
do  not  pretend  that  Mr.  Loring,  sitting  as  a  Judge  of  Pro 
bate,  has  been  guilty  of  any  such,  I  pass  from  this  point. 

But  the  Constitution  provides  another  form,  which  is, 
that  a  judge  may  be  removed  from  office  by  address  of 
both  Houses  to  His  Excellency  the  Governor.  In  the 
first  place,  Gentlemen,  let  me  read  to  you  the  source  of 
this  power.  "  All  judicial  officers,  duly  appointed,  com- 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING.  159 

missioned,  and  sworn,  shall  hold  their  offices  during  good 
behavioi,  excepting  such  concerning  whom  there  is  a  dif 
ferent  provision  made  in  this  Constitution  :  Provided, 
nevertheless,  the  Governor,  with  consent  of  the  Council, 
may  remove  them  upon  address  of  both  Houses  of  the 
Legislature."  (Const,  of  Mass.,  Chap.  III.  Art.  1.) 
"  Provided,  nevertheless,  the  Governor,  with  consent  of  the 
Council,  may  remove  them  upon  the  address  of  both  Houses 
of  the  Legislature."  Now,  Gentlemen,  looking  on  the  face 
of  this,  it  would  be  naturally  inferred  that,  notwithstanding 
his  "good  behavior,"  arid  without  alleging  any  violation  of 
it,  a  judge  could,  nevertheless,  be  removed  by  address  ; 
that  an  "  address  "  need  not  be  based  on  a  charge  of  official 
misconduct,  —  that  an  "  address  "  need  not  be  based  on  a 
charge  of  illegal  conduct,  in  any  capacity.  This  seems  so 
clear,  that  I  should  have  left  this  point  without  further 
remark,  if  Mr.  Loring  had  not  placed  upon  your  files  a 
remonstrance  against  the  prayer  of  these  petitioners,  which 
remonstrance  (I  shall  not  occupy  your  time  by  reading  it) 
is  based  upon  the  principle,  that  it  would  be  a  hard  and 
unjust  procedure  if  either  house  should  address  the  Gov 
ernor  against  him,  seeing  that  he  has  not  violated  any 
State  law,  or  done  anything  that  was  illegal,  or  that  was 
prohibited  by  the  laws  of  Massachusetts,  and  alleging  that 
he  has  only  acted  in  conformity  with  the  official  oath  of  all 
officers  of  the  State  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  The  defence  of  the  remonstrant,  as  far  as 
we  are  informed  of  it,  is,  that  he  ought  not  to  be  removed, 
because  he  has  violated  no  law  of  Massachusetts.  To  that 
plea,  Gentlemen,  I  shall  simply  reply  :  the  method  of  re 
moving  a  judge  by  "  address  "  does  not  require  that  the 
House  or  Senate  should  be  convinced  that  he  has  violated 
any  law  whatever.  Grant  all  Mr.  Loring  states  in  his 
remonstrance,  —  that  he  has  broken  no  law,  that  he 
stands  legally  impeccable  before  you ;  which,  in  other 


160  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING. 

words,  is  simply  to  say  that  he  cannot  be  indicted;  If  ho 
had  violated  a  law,  he  could  be  indicted ;  he  comes  to  this 
house  and  says,  in  effect,  "  Gentlemen,  I  cannot  be  in 
dicted  ;  therefore,  I  ought  not  to  be  removed."  The  reply 
of  the  petitioners  is,  A  man  may  be  unfit  for  a  judge  long 
before  he  becomes  fit  for  the  state-prison.  Their  reply  is, 
(leaving  for  the  time  all  question  of  impeachment,)  It  is 
not  necessary  that  a  judge  should  render  himself  liable  to 
indictment,  in  order  to  be  subject  to  be  removed  by  "  ad 
dress."  He  can  be  removed  (as  my  brother  who  preceded 
me  [Seth  Webb,  Jr.,  Esq.]  has  well  said)  for  any  cause 
which  the  Legislature,  in  its  discretion,  thinks  a  fitting 
cause  for  his  removal.  Even  if  he  has  not  violated  any 
law  of  the  Commonwealth,  written  or  unwritten,  still  he 
may  be  removed,  if  the  Legislature  thinks  the  public  in 
terest  demands  it.  The  matter  is  entirely  within  your 
discretion.  My  proof  of  this  is,  first,  the  language  of  the 
Constitution.  The  Constitution  says  :  "  The  Senate  shall 
be  a  court  with  full  authority  to  hear  and  determine  all 
impeachments  made  by  the  House  of  Representatives 
against  any  officer  or  officers  of  the  Commonwealth,  for 
misconduct  and  mal-administration  in  their  offices." 
(Chap.  I.  Sec.  2,  Art.  8.)  Now,  suppose  it  true,  as  some 
claim,  that  such  misconduct  must  amount  to  a  violation  of 
positive  law,  that  nothing  short  of  that  will  justify  impeach 
ment;  the  mere  fact  that  the  Constitution  provides  an 
other  way  would  be  prima  facie  evidence  that  it  meant  to 
lay  a  broader  foundation  for  removal ;  else,  why  two 
methods  ?  If,  in  his  office,  he  had  outraged  the  laws  of 
the  State,  he  could  be  impeached.  Is  not  one  remedy 
sufficient  ?  Why  does  the  Constitution  provide  another  ? 
Because  the  people,  through  their  Constitution,  meant  to 
say,  "  We  will  not  have  judges  that  cannot  be  removed 
unless  they  have  violated  a  statute.  We  will  provide, 
that  in  case  of  any  misconduct,  any  unfitting  character. 


REMOVAL    OF   JUDGE   LORING.  161 

any  incapacity  or  loss  of  confidence,  the  supreme  power 
of  the  Legislature  may  intervene  and  remove  them."  If 
impeachment  applies  only  to  official  misconduct,  expressly 
prohibited  by  statute,  as  seems  to  be  claimed,  then,  from 
the  existence  of  another  additional  method  in  the  Consti 
tution,  one  would  naturally  infer  that  this  other  power 
referred  to  misconduct  not  official,  and  not  expressly  pro 
hibited  by  statute.  In  addition  to  the  mere  letter  of  the 
Constitution,  and  the  inference  from  the  fact  of  two  pow 
ers  being  granted,  we  have  the  action  of  the  Common 
wealth  in  times  past.  I  have  not  time  for  historical  de 
tails,  but  the  power  of  address,  whenever  it  has  been  used 
in  this  Commonwealth,  has  been  used  to  remove  judges 
who  had  not  violated  any  law.  Judge  Bradbury  was  re 
moved,  I  think,  for  mental  incapacity,  resulting  from 
advancing  age.  Of  course,  intellectual  inefficiency  is  not 
impeachable  ;  it  is  not  such  "  misconduct  or  mal-administra- 
tion  "  as  renders  a  man  liable  to  impeachment;  but  the  Con 
stitution,  in  order  to  cover  the  whole  ground,  has  left  with 
the  Legislature  the  power  to  remove  an  inefficient  judge, 
—  a  judge  who  has  grown  too  old  to  perform  his  duties. 
But  it  happens  that  this  clause  of  the  Constitution  has 
been  passed  upon,  —  not,  indeed,  by  the  Supreme  Court, 
but  I  may  say  by  equally  high  authority.  It  has  been 
expounded  by  some  of  the  ablest  men  the  Commonwealth 
ever  knew,  and  in  circumstances  which  preclude  the  idea 
of  prejudice  or  passion.  It  is  fortunate  for  these  petition 
ers,  in  regard  to  this  claim  of  the  power  of  the  Legislature 
(which  it  is  said  Mr.  Loring's  friends  intend  to  deny,  and 
which  his  remonstrance  does  practically  deny), — it  is 
fortunate  for  them,  that  in  the  Constitutional  Convention 
of  Massachusetts,  in  1820,  this  clause  of  the  Constitution 
was  deliberately  discussed.  It  was  discussed,  Gentlemen, 
not  when  there  was  a  case  before  the  Commonwealth, 
when  men  were  divided  into  parties,  when  personal  sym- 
11 


162  REMOVAL   OF   JUDGE   LORING. 

pathy  or  antipathy  might  bias  men's  judgments,  but  when 
the  debaters  were  in  the  most  unimpassioned  state  of 
mind  ;  —  statesmen,  endeavoring  to  found  the  laws  of  the 
Commonwealth  on  the  best  basis.  The  discussion  was 
long  and  able.  I  shall  read  you  the  sentiments  of  differ 
ent  gentlemen  who  took  part  in  that  discussion,  for  this 
purpose,  —  to  show  you  that  this  Legislature  has  an  un 
limited  power  of  removal  for  any  cause,  —  whether  the 
law  has  been  violated  or  not,  —  whether  acts  were  done 
by  a  judge  in  his  official  capacity  or  any  other.  Allow  me 
to  remind  you,  Gentlemen,  that  there  are  two  questions 
you  are  bound  to  ask.  The  first  is,  Can  we  remove  a 
judge  who  is  not  guilty  of  any  official  misconduct,  of  any 
violation  of  statute  law,  in  any  capacity  ?  The  second  is, 
If  we  have  the  power,  ought  we  to  exercise  it  in  the 
present  case  ?  1st.  Have  we  this  power  ?  2d.  Ought  we 
to  exercise  it  ? 

I  propose  to  read  you  extracts  from  the  speeches  in  the 
Massachusetts  Convention  of  1820,  to  show  that  the 
Legislature  has,  in  the  judgment  of  our  ablest  lawyers  and 
statesmen,  an  unlimited  authority  to.  ask  the  removal  of 
judges  whenever  it  sees  fit,  and  for  any  cause  the  Legis 
lature  thinks  sufficient ;  that  the  PEOPLE,  the  original 
source  of  all  power,  have  not  parted  with  their  sovereignty 
in  this  respect,  —  did  not  intend  to  part  with  it,  and  did 
not  part  with  it.  When  I  have  convinced  you,  if  I  shall 
succeed  in  convincing  you,  that  you  have  this  authority, 
I  shall,  with  your  permission,  say  a  few  words  to  enforce 
the  other  point,  that  you  ought  to  exercise  it  according  to 
the  prayer  of  the  petitioners. 

In  the  first  place,  I  read  the  clause  of  the  Constitution  : 
"  The  Governor,  with  consent  of  the  Council,  may  remove 
them  [judicial  officers]  upon  the  address  of  both  houses 
of  the  Legislature."  The  Constitutional  Convention, 
which  met  in  1820,  appointed  a  committee  to  take  this 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORIXG.  163 

clause  into  consideration.  That  committee  consisted  of 
Messrs.  Story  of  Salem  (Judge  Story,  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States),  John  Phillips  of  Boston 
(Judge  of  the  Common  Pleas  Court  of  Massachusetts,  and 
President  of  the  Senate),  Martin  of  Dorchester,  Cum- 
mings  of  Salem  (Judge  of  the  Common  Pleas),  Levi 
Lincoln  of  Worcester  (afterwards  Judge  of  our  Supreme 
Court  and  Governor  of  the  Commonwealth),  Andrews 
of  Newburyport,  Holmes  of  Rochester,  Hills  of  Pittsfield, 
Austin  of  Charlestown  (High  Sheriff  of  Middlesex  Coun 
ty),  Leland  of  Roxbury  (afterwards  Judge  of  Probate 
for  Norfolk  County),  Kent  of  West  Springfield,  Shaw  of 
Boston  (present  Chief  Justice  of  the  Commonwealth), 
Marston  of  Barn  stable,  Austin  of  Boston  (since  Attorney- 
General  of  the  Commonwealth),  and  Bartlett  of  Medford, 
—  a  committee  highly  respectable  for  the  ability  and 
position  of  its  members.  Permit  me  to  read  a  section  of 
their  Report  (p.  136)  :  — 

"  By  the  first  article  of  the  Constitution,  any  judge  may  be 
removed  from  his  office  by  the  Governor,  with  the  advice  of  the 
Council,  upon  the  address  of  a  bare  majority  of  both  Houses  of 
the  Legislature.  The  committee  are  of  opinion  that  this  pro 
vision  has  a  tendency  materially  to  impair  the  independence  of 
the  judges,  and  to  destroy  the  efficacy  of  the  clause  which  declares 
they  shall  hold  their  offices  during  good  behavior.  The  tenure 
of  good  behavior  seems  to  the  committee  indispensable  to  guard 
judges,  on  the  one  hand,  from  the  effects  of  sudden  resentments 
and  temporary  prejudices  entertained  by  the  people,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  from  the  influence  which  ambitious  and  powerful 
men  naturally  exert  over  those  who  are  dependent  upon  their 
good-will.  A  provision  which  should  at  once  secure  to  the 
people  a  power  of  removal  in  cases  of  palpable  misconduct  or 
incapacity,  and  at  the  same  time  secure  to  the  judges  a  reason 
able  permanency  in  their  offices,  seems  of  the  greatest  utility ; 
and  such  a  provision  will,  in  the  opinion  of  the  committee,  be 
obtained  by  requiring  that  the  removal  instead  of  being  upon 


164  '  REMOVAL    OF   JUDGE    LORING. 

the  address  of  a  majority,  shall  be  upon  the  address  of  two  third* 
of  the  members  present  of  each  House  of  the  Legislature." 

The  committee,  you  see,  Gentlemen,  acknowledge  that 
there  is  unlimited  power  ;  they  think  that  power  danger 
ous  ;  they  advise  that  it  should  be  limited  —  how  ?  Ob 
serve,  even  this  committee,  although  they  say  they  think 
it  dangerous,  do  not  advise  it  should  be  stricken  out ;  but 
they  advise  it  should  be  limited  by  requiring  a  two-thirds 
vote,  and  this  is  all. 

Remember,  Gentlemen,  that  I  read  the  following  ex 
tracts,  not  to  show  the  opinion  of  this  Convention  as  to  the 
yalue  or  the  danger  of  this  power  ;  I  merely  wish  to  show 
you  that,  in  the  opinion  of  the  ablest  lawyers  of  the  State, 
the  Constitution,  as  it  then  stood,  (and  it  stands  now  pre 
cisely  as  it  stood  then,)  gave  to  this  Legislature  unlimited 
authority  to  remove  judges,  for  any  cause  they  saw  fit ; 
and  that,  while  all  the  speakers  were  fully  aware  of  its 
liability  to  abuse,  no  speaker  denied  its  unlimited  extent, 
or  proposed  to  strike  the  power  from  the  Constitution. 
After  that  report  had  been  put  in,  the  Convention  pro 
ceeded  to  take  it  up  for  discussion. 

The  first  gentleman  who  joins,  to  any  purpose,  in  the 
debate,  is  Samuel  Hubbard,  Esq.,  perhaps,  beyond  all 
comparison,  the  fairest-minded  as  well  as  one  of  the  ablest 
lawyers  of  the  Suffolk  bar ;  and  let  me  add,  that,  after  a 
life  passed  in  the  most  responsible  practice  of  his  profes 
sion,  he  finished  it  on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
His  testimony  is  the  more  valuable,  because  Mr.  Hubbard 
thought  this  provision  eminently  dangerous.  But  he 
says : — 

"  The  Constitution  was  defective  in  not  sufficiently  securing 
the  independence  of  judges.  He  asked  if  a  judge  was  free  when 
the  Legislature  might  have  him  removed  when  it  pleased.  .... 
The  tenure  of  office  of  judges  was  said  to  be  during  good  be 
havior.  Was  tliis  the  case,  when  the  Legislature  might  deprive 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING.  165 

them  of  their  office,  although  they  had  committed  no  crime  ?  .  .  .  . 
No  justice  of  the  peace  was  allowed  to  be  deprived  of  his  office 
without  a  hearing,  but  here  the  judges  of  the  highest  court  might 
be  dismissed  without  an  opportunity  of  saying  a  word  in  their 
defence." 

Then  comes  Chief  Justice  Lemuel  Shaw  :  — 

"  The  general  principle  was,  that  they  should  be  independent 
of  the  other  persons  during  good  behavior.  What  is  meant  by 
good  behavior?  The  faithful  discharge  of  the  duties  of  the 
office.  If  not  faithful,  they  were  liable  to  trial  by  impeachments. 
But  cases  might  arise  when  it  might  be  desirable  to  remove  a 
judge  from  office  for  other  causes.  He  may  become  incapable 
of  performing  the  duties  of  the  office  without  fault.  He  may 
lose  his  reason,  or  be  otherwise  incapacitated.  It  is  the  theory 
of  our  government,  that  no  man  shall  receive  the  emoluments  of 
office  without  performing  the  services,  though  he  is  incapacitated 
by  the  providence  of  God.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  that  there 
should  be  provision  for  this  case.  But  in  cases  when  it  applies, 
the  reason  will  be  so  manifest  as  to  command  a  general  assent. 
It  must  be  known  so  as  to  admit  of  no  doubt,  if  a  judge  has  lost 
his  reason,  or  become  incapable  of  performing  his  duties.  As  it 
does  not  imply  misbehavior,  if  the  reason  cannot  be  made  mani 
fest  so  as  to  command  the  assent  of  a  great  majority  of  the  Legis 
lature,  of  two  thirds  at  least,  there  can  be  no  necessity  for  the 
removal.  By  the  Constitution  as  it  stands,  the  judges  hold  their 
offices  at  the  will  of  the  majority  of  the  Legislature.  He  con 
fessed  with  pride  and  pleasure  that  the  power  had  not  been 
abused.  But  it  was  capable  of  being  abused.  If  so,  it  ought  to 
be  guarded  against.  That  could  be  done  by  requiring  the  voice 
of  two  thirds  of  each  branch  of  the  Legislature." 

Then  comes  William  Prescott,  a  name  well  known  here 
and  the  world  over.  He  was  a  man  of  English  make  ; 
taciturn,  of  few  words,  no  diffuse  American  talker.  He 
spoke  little,  but  each  word  was  worth  gold.  His  rare  civil 
virtues,  great  ability,  and  eminently  judicial  mind  added 
lustre  to  a  name  that  was  heard  in  the  van  of  Bunker 
Hill  fight. 


166  REMOVAL   OF   JUDGE   LORING. 

"What  security  have  they  [judges]  by  the  Constitution? 
They  hold  their  offices  as  long  as  they  behave  well,  and  nc 
longer.  They  are  impeached  when  guilty  of  misconduct.  It  is 
the  duty  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  constituting  the  grand 
inquest  of  the  Commonwealth,  to  make  inquiry,  —  for  the  Senate 
to  try,  and,  if  guilty,  to  remove  them  from  office.  There  may  be 
other  cases  in  which  they  ought  to  be  removed,  when  not  guilty 
of  misconduct  in  office,  but  for  infirmity.  Provision  is  made  for 
these  cases,  that  the  two  branches  of  the  Legislature,  concurring 
with  the  Governor  and  Council,  may  remove  judges  from  office. 
He  did  not  object  to  this  provision,  if  it  was  restrained  so  as  to 
preserve  the  independence  of  the  judges.  They  should  be  inde 
pendent  of  the  Legislature  and  of  the  Governor  and  Council. 
But  now  there  is  no  security.  The  two  other  departments  may 
remove  them  without  inquiry,  —  without  putting  any  reason  on 
record.  It  is  in  their  power  to  say  that  the  judges  shall  no 
longer  hold  their  offices,  and  that  others  more  agreeable  shall  be 
put  in  their  places.  He  asked,  was  this  independence  ?  " 

There  may  be  "  other  cases  "  in  which  they  ought  to 
be  removed  when  not  guilty  of  misconduct  in  office,  but 
from  infirmity.  Is  not  that  exactly  what  the  petitioners 
claim  ?  There  being  no  misconduct  in  office,  no  violation 
of  the  precise  statutes  of  the  Commonwealth,  comes  the 
case  described  by  Mr.  Prescott,  where  a  judge  ought  to 
be  dismissed  for  "  infirmity  "  ;  for  we  maintain  that  there 
was  here  a  cruel  "  infirmity."  "  He  did  not  object  to  this 
provision"  if  properly  restrained,  (that  was  the  old  Feder 
alist  ;  the  man  who  never  was  inclined  to  trust  the  people 
too  far ;  the  man  who  was  in  favor  of  a  strong  govern 
ment !) —  "he  did  not  object  to  this  provision ";  all  he 
asked  was  a  two-thirds  vote. 

Then  comes  Mr.  Daniel  Davis  of  Boston.  You  may 
not  have  known  him,  Gentlemen  ;  but  those  of  us  who  are 
older  remember  him  as  the  Solicitor-General  for  the  Com 
monwealth  of  Massachusetts.  He  says  :  — 

"  If  the  resolutions  were  before   the   committee   in   a  form 


KEMJVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING.  167 

which  admitted  of  amendment,  he  would  propose  to  alter  it  in 
such  manner  that  the  officer  to  be  removed  should  have  a  right 
to  be  heard.  No  reason  need  now  be  given  for  the  removal  of  a 
judge,  but  that  the  Legislature  do  not  like  him." 

He  did  not  deny  the  power,  did  not  question  its  utility  ; 
all  he  wanted  was,  that  the  officer  should  be  heard.  "  No 
reason  need  be  given,  but  that  the  Legislature  do  not  like 
him."  Is  not  this  unlimited  power  ?  The  claim  of  Mr. 
Loring  is,  substantially,  that  you  abuse  your  power,  unless 
you  charge,  and  prove,  that  he  has  offended  against  a 
statute  "in  such  case  made  and  provided."  Mr.  Daniel 
Davis  says  :  "  No  reason  need  be  given  for  the  removal 
of  a  judge,  but  that  the  Legislature  do  not  like  him." 
That  is  his  idea  of  the  power  of  this  Legislature. 

Then  comes  Mr.  Henry  H.  Childs  of  Pittsfield.  I  do 
not  know  his  history.  He  did  not  want  the  Constitution 
changed  at  all ;  lie  did  not  ask  even  the  two-thirds  vote. 
Mr.  Childs  says  :  — 

"  It  was  in  violation  of  an  important  principle  of  the  govern 
ment,  that  the  majority  of  the  Legislature,  together  with  the 
Governor,  should  not  have  the  power  of  removal  from  office. 
This  power  was  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  the  Bill  of 
Rights.  It  was  imperative  in  the  advocates  of  this  resolution  to 
show  that  it  was  necessary  to  intrench  this  department  of  the 
government  for  its  security.  They  had  not  shown  it ;  on  the 
contrary,  we  were  in  the  full  tide  of  successful  experiment.  The 
founders  of  the  Constitution  intended  to  put  the  judiciary  on  the 
footing  of  the  fullest  independence  consistent  with  their  respon 
sibility.  " 

"  This  power  was  in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of 
the  Bill  of  Rights."  What  are  these  ?  Section  V.  of 
the  Bill  of  Rights  reads  thus  :  — 

"  All  power  residing  originally  in  the  people,  and  being  de 
rived  from  them,  the  several  magistrates  and  officers  of  govern 
ment,  vested  with  authority,  whether  legislative,  executive,  or 


168  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

judicial,  are  their  substitutes  and  agents,  and  are  at  all  times 
accountable  to  them." 

Mr.  Loring  knew  under  what  condition  he  was  taking 
office.  He  knew  this  provision  in  the  Declaration  of 
Rights,  that  the  people  retain  all  power,  and  that  all 
magistrates  "  vested  with  authority,  whether  legislative, 
executive,  or  judicial,  are  their  substitutes  and  agents, 
and  are  at  all  times  accountable  to  them,"  —  in  office  and 
out  of  it.  Section  VIII.  says  further  :  — 

"  In  order  to  prevent  those  who  are  vested  with  authority 
from  becoming  oppressors,  the  people  have  a  right,  at  such 
periods  and  in  such  manner  as  they  shall  establish  by  their  frame 
of  government,  to  cause  their  public  officers  to  return  to  private 
life  ;  and  to  fill  up  vacant  places  by  certain  and  regular  elections 
and  appointments." 

No  man  has  a  right  to  criticise  here  the  manner  in 
which  the  removal  is  effected.  Let  them  go  elsewhere 
than  to  this  tribunal,  if  they  say  it  is  a  bad  power.  The 
people  retain  the  right,  at  such  periods  and  in  such  man 
ner  as  they  shall  establish  by  their  frame  of  government, 
to  cause  their  public  officers  to  return  to  private  life. 

This  is  the  principle  of  our  Declaration  of  Rights. 
Mr.  Childs  says  :  "  The  founders  of  the  Constitution 
intended  to  put  the  judiciary  on  the  footing  of  the  fullest 
independence  consistent  with  their  responsibility."  Mr. 
Chairman,  I  beseech  you,  in  the  progress  of  this  discus 
sion,  if  the  remonstrant  shall  ring  changes  on  the  neces 
sity  of  maintaining  the  independence  of  the  judiciary,  to 
remember  this  remark,  that  "  the  founders  of  the  Consti 
tution  intended  to  put  the  judiciary  on  the  footing  of  the 
fullest  independence  consistent  with  their  responsibility" 
—  no  more. 

Then  Mr.  Cummings  of  Salem,  afterwards  Judge,  rose. 
He  says  :  — 

"  Tn  this   State,  they  cannot  be  removed  on  address  of  thfc 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING.  169 

Legislature,  but  with  the  consent  of  the  Council.  Was  not  this 
a  sufficient  guard  ?  Another  part  of  the  Constitution  protects 
them  when  acused  of  crimes.  This  provision  is  not  intended  to 
embrace  cases  of  crime,  —  it  is  only  for  cases  when  they  become 
incompetent  to  discharge  their  duties.  May  not  the  people,  by  a 
majority,  determine  whether  judges  are  incompetent  ?  " 

Mr.  Loring  says,  "  Show  me  my  crime  !  "  Mr.  Cum- 
inings  says,  "  This  provision  is  not  intended  to  embrace 
cases  of  crime." 

Levi  Lincoln  of  Worcester  comes  next.  He  was  then 
a  Democrat,  —  since  Governor,  and  Judge  : 

"  He  was  entirely  satisfied  with  the  Constitution  as  it  was. 
He  had  never  heard  till  now,  and  was  now  surprised  to  hear, 
that  there  was  any  want  of  independence  in  the  judiciary.  He 
had  heard  it  spoken  of  in  charges,  sermons,  and  discourses  in  the 
streets,  as  one  of  the  most  valuable  features  of  the  Constitution, 
that  it  established  an  independent  judiciary.  He  inquired,  Was 
it  dependent  on  the  Legislature  ?  It  was  not  on  the  Legislature 
nor  on  the  Executive.  No  judge  could  be  removed  but  by  the 
concurrent  act  of  four  co-ordinate  branches  of  the  government,  — 
the  House  of  Representatives,  the  Senate,  with  a  different  or 
ganization  from  the  House,  the  Governor,  and  the  Council. 
Was  it  to  be  supposed  that  all  these  should  conspire  together  to 
remove  a  useful  judge  ?  But  it  was  argued  that  future  Legisla 
tures  might  be  corrupt.  This  was  a  monstrous  supposition.  He 
would  rather  suppose  that  a  judge  might  be  corrupt.  It  was 
more  natural  that  a  single  person  should  be  corrupt  than  a  nu 
merous  body.  The  proposed  amendment  was  said  to  be  similar 
to  provisions  of  other  governments.  There  was  no  analogy, 
because  other  governments  are  not  constituted  like  ours.  It  was 
said  that  judges  have  estates  in  their  offices,  —  he  did  not  agree 
to  this  doctrine.  The  office  was  not  made  for  the  judge,  nor  the 
judge  for  the  office  ;  but  both  for  the  people.  There  was 
another  tenure,  —  the  confidence  of  the  people.  It  was  that 
which  had  hitherto  occurred  here.  Have  we,  then,  less  reason 
to  confide  in  posterity  than  our  ancestors  had  to  confide  in 
us?" 


170  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

Then  follows  Mr.  Daniel  Webster.  He  had  recently 
come  to  the  State.  Joining  in  the  debate,  he  says  :  — 

"  As  the  Constitution  now  stands,  all  judges  are  liable  to  bo 
removed  from  office  by  the  Governor,  with  the  consent  of  the 
Council,  on  the  address  of  the  two  Houses  of  the  Legislature. 
It  is  not  made  necessary  that  the  two  Houses  should  give  any 
reasons  for  their  address,  or  that  the  judge  should  have  an  oppor 
tunity  to  be  heard.  I  look  upon  this  as  against  common  right, 
as  well  as  repugnant  to  the  general  principles  of  the  govern 
ment 

"  If  the  Legislature  may  remove  judges  at  pleasure,  assigning 
no  cause  for  such  removal,  of  course  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that 
they  would  often  find  decisions  against  the  constitutionality  of 
their  own  acts." 

These  are  Webster's  words  ;  and  you  will  remember, 
Mr.  Chairman,  that  the  Constitution  stands,  in  1855,  just 
as  it  stood  when  Webster  was  speaking.  I  cite  the  lan 
guage  to  show  what  Mr.  Webster  understood  to  be  the 
Constitution  of  Massachusetts,  —  that  you  could  remove 
a  judge  without  giving  any  reason,  "at  your  pleasure," 
without  hearing  him.  Now,  what  does  he  propose  to  do  ? 
Does  he  propose  to  strike  out  that  provision  ?  No,  Sir ! 
He  does  not  even  propose  a  two-thirds  vote. 

"  In  Pennsylvania,  the  judges  may  be  removed,  '  for  any  rea 
sonable  cause,'  on  the  address  of  two  thirds  of  the  two  Houses. 
In  some  of  the  States,  three  fourths  of  each  House  is  required. 
The  new  Constitution  of  Maine  has  a  provision,  with  which  I 
should  be  content ;  which  is,  that  no  judge  shall  be  liable  to  be 
removed  by  the  Legislature  till  the  matter  of  his  accusation  ha? 
been  made  known  to  him,  and  he  has  had  an  opportunity  of 
being  heard  in  his  defence." 

He  says  that  the  Constitution  gives  you  the  power  to 
remove,  and  all  he  asks  is,  that,  before  doing  it,  you  should 
allow  the  judge  an  opportunity  to  be  heard. 

The  fact  is,  Gentlemen,  you  have,  according  to  Mr. 
Webster,  the  power  to  shut  that  door,  and,  without  assign- 


REMOVAL  OF  JUDGE  LORING.  171 

mg  any  reason  whatever,  vote  a  judge  out  of  office,  and 
send  him  word  that  he  is  out,  —  the  Constitution  does  not 
guarantee  him  anything  else  than  that.  Webster  wanted 
it  amended ;  the  Convention  submitted  a  proposition  for 
amendment ;  but  the  people  declined  to  accept  it.  This 
absolute  sovereignty  of  Massachusetts,  which,  ever  since 
the  Colonies,  had  been  held  on  to  by  the  people,  —  of  that 
they  were  unwilling  to  yield  a  whit. 

The  debate  continues,  and  Mr.  Childs  again  joins  in  it. 

"  The  object  in  giving  the  power  to  the  Legislature  was,  that 
judges  might  be  removed  when  it  was  the  universal  sentiment 
of  the  community  that  they  were  disqualified  for  the  office  al 
though  they  could  not  be  convicted  on  impeachment." 

Can  you  ask  anything  more  definite  than  that  ?  No 
body  denied  it.  "  The  object  in  giving  this  power  to  the 
Legislature  was,  that  judges  might  be  removed,  when  it 
was  the  universal  sentiment  of  the  community  that  they 
were  disqualified  for  the  office,  although  they  could  not  be 
convicted  on  impeachment." 

Gentlemen,  I  would  not  weary  your  patience  with  long 
extracts ;  I  am  giving  you  only  the  general  current  of  the 
discussion.  The  next  speaker  is  James  Trecothick  Aus 
tin,  —  the  name  of  one  who  will  not  be  suspected  of  being 
too  favorable  to  the  rights  of  the  people  ;  it  is  not  often 
that  I  have  an  opportunity  to  quote  him  on  my  side. 
"  Nobody  objects  to  this  provision,"  said  Mr.  Austin. 
There  sat  Prescott,  Shaw,  Webster,  Story,  Lincoln,  — 
the  men  whom  you  look  up  to  as  the  lights  of  this  Com 
monwealth  ;  but  —  "  nobody  objects  to  this  provision  "  ! 

"  Nobody  objects  to  this  provision.  The  House  of  Represent 
atives  is  the  grand  inquest,  —  they  are  tried  by  the  Senate,  and 
have  the  right  of  being  heard.  But  the  Constitution  admits  that 
there  may  be  cases  in  which  judges  may  be  removed  without 
supposing  a  crime.  But  how  is  it  to  be  done  by  this  resolution  ? 
There  are  to  be  two  trials,  when  for  the  greater  charge  of  a 


172  REMOVAL   OF  'JUDGE  LORING. 

high  crime  he  has  only  one.  It  so  obstructs  the  course  of  pro 
ceeding,  that  it  will  never  be  used.  He  would  suppose  the  case, 
not  of  mental  disability,  but  the  loss  of  public  confidence.  .  He 
knew  that  such  cases  were  not  to  be  anticipated.  But  he  would 
look  to  times  when  the  principle  might  be  brought  into  operation, 
when  the  judge,  by  indulging  strong  party  feelings,  or  from  any 
other  cause,  should  so  far  have  lost  the  confidence  of  the  commu 
nity  that  his  usefulness  should  be  destroyed.  He  ought  in  such 
cases  to  be  removed ;  but  if  witnesses  were  to  be  summoned  to 
prove  specific  charges,  it  would  be  impossible  to  remove  him.  A 
man  may  do  a  vast  deal  of  mischief,  and  yet  evade  the  penalty 
of  the  law,  —  a  judge  may  act  in  such  a  manner  that  an  intelli 
gent  community  may  think  their  rights  in  danger,  and  yet  com 
mit  no  offence  against  any  written  or  unwritten  law.  Men  are 
more  likely  to  act  in  such  manner  as  to  render  themselves  un 
worthy  to  be  trusted,  than  so  as  to  subject  themselves  to  trial. 
The  great  argument  for  the  amendment  is,  that  it  is  necessary  to 
secure  the  independence  of  the  judiciary.  He  was  in  favor  of 
the  principle,  but  it  had  its  limitations.  While  we  secure  the  in 
dependence  of  the  judges,  we  should  remember  that  they  are  but 
men,  and  sometimes  mere  partisans." 

The  remonstrant  here  says,  I  have  not  touched  a 
statute.  Mr.  Austin  says,  No  matter  whether  you 
have  or  not ;  "  a  man  may  do  a  vast  deal  of  mischief,  and 
yet  evade  the  penalty  of  the  law."  Then  he  says  he  has 
heard  a  great  deal  of  the  weakness  of  the  judiciary.  He 
says  the  judiciary  is  not  weak.  Should  you  chance  to  see 
the  remonstrant  appear  here,  attended  by  eminent  legal 
relatives  and  friends,  you  will  remember  this  :  — 

"  The  court  were  besides  attended  by  a  splendid  and  powerful 
retinue,  —  the  bar.  They  have  great  influence  from  their  talents, 
learning,  and  esprit  de  corps,  and  as  an  appendage  to  the  court, 
they  give  them  a  great  and  able  support.  He  did  not  admit 
that  the  judiciary  was  a  weak  branch  of  the  government,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  it  was  a  strong  branch." 

Then  comes  Judge   Story.      If  anybody   ever  was,  I 


REMOVAL    OF   JUDGE   LORIXG.  173 

may  say,  a  little  crazy  on  the  subject  of  the  independence  of 
the  judges,  it  was  the  late  able  and  learned  Judge  Story,  — 
at  least  during  the  last  half  of  his  life.  What  does  he  say  ? 
He  says  :  — 

"  The  Governor  and  Council  might  remove  them  [judges]  on 
the  address  of  a  majority  of  the  Legislature,  not  for  crimes  and 
misdemeanors,  for  that  was  provided  for  in  another  manner,  but 
for  no  cause  whatever,  —  no  reason  was  to  be  given.  A  power 
ful  individual,  who  has  a  cause  in  court  which  he  is  unwilling  to 
trust  to  an  upright  judge,  may,  if  he  has  influence  enough  to  ex 
cite  a  momentary  prejudice,  and  command  a  majority  of  the 
Legislature,  obtain  his  removal.  He  does  not  hold  the  office  by 
the  tenure  of  good  behavior,  but  at  the  will  of  a  majority  of  the 
Legislature,  and  they  are  not  bound  to  assign  any  reason  for  the 
exercise  of  their  power.  Sic  volo,  sic  jubeo,  stet  pro  ratione 
voluntas.  (Thus  I  wish  it ;  thus  I  order  :  let  my  will  stand  for 
a  reason.)  This  is  the  provision  of  the  Constitution,  and  it  is 
only  guarded  by  the  good  sense  of  the  people.  He  had  no  fear 
of  the  voice  of  the  people,  when  he  could  get  their  deliberate 
voice,  —  but  he  did  fear  from  the  Legislature,  if  the  judge  has  no 
right  to  be  heard." 

That  is  the  opinion  of  the  learned  Judge  Story  as  to 
the  power  of  the  Legislature.  "  I  have  no  fear  of  the 
voice  of  the  people,"  says  Judge  Story.  All  he  pro 
posed  was,  that  the  judge  should  have  an  opportunity  to 
be  heard. 

What  was  the  result  of  this  discussion  ?  The  Conven 
tion  proposed  to  the  people  —  what  ?  That  no  judge 
should  ever  be  removed  without  notice.  The  people  voted 
on  that  amendment,  voted  NAY,  and  declined  to  insert  it  in 
the  Constitution. 

Now,  Gentlemen,  what  is  my  argument?  Here  is  a 
debate  on  this  clause,  not  by  men  heated  with  passion,  not 
by  men  with  party  purposes  to  serve,  but  by  men  acting 
as  statesmen,  in  the  coolest,  most  deliberate,  and  temperate 
mood,  —  men  of  various  parties,  Whig  and  Democratic,  — 


174  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

and  every  one  of  them  asserts,  without  a  dissenting  voice, 
that  this  provision  is  inserted  for  the  purpose  of  giving  the 
Legislature  the  power  to  remove  a  judge,  when  he  has  not 
violated  any  law  of  the  Commonwealth.  In  addition  to 
this,  Gentlemen,  I  will  read  the  remark  of  Chief  Justice 
Shaw,  when  he  was  counsel  for  the  House  against  Judge 
Prescott,  of  Groton,  who  was  removed  on  impeachment, 
you  will  recollect,  in  1821.  On  that  occasion,  Judge 
Shaw  was  counsel  for  the  House  of  Representatives,  and 
made  some  comments  on  this  provision,  which,  as  his  opin 
ion  has  a  deserved  weight  in  matters  of  constitutional  law, 
it  is  well  to  read  here.  He  says  :  — 

"  It  is  true,  that,  by  another  course  of  proceeding,  warranted 
by  a  different  provision  of  the  Constitution,  any  officer  may  be 
removed  by  the  Executive,  at  the  will  and  pleasure  of  a  bare 
majority  of  the  Legislature  ;  a  will  which  the  Executive  in 
most  cases  would  Jjave  little  power  and  inclination  to  resist. 
The  Legislature,  without  either  allegation  or  proof,  has  but  to 
pronounce  the  sic  volo,  sic  jubeo,  and  the  officer  is  at  once  de 
prived  of  his  place,  and  of  all  the  rank,  the  powers  and  emolu 
ments,  belonging  to  it.  And  yet,  perhaps,  this  provision  (whether 
wise  or  not  I  will  not  now  stop  to  consider)  is  hardly  sufficient 
to  justify  the  extraordinary  alarm  which  has  been  so  eloquently 
expressed  for  the  liberty  and  security  of  the  people,  or  to  affix 
upon  the  Constitution  the  charge  of  containing  features  more 
odious  and  oppressive  than  those  of  Turkish  despotism.  The 
truth  is,  that  the  security  of  our  rights  depends  rather  upon  the 
general  tenor  and  character,  than  upon  particular  provisions  of 
our  Constitution.  The  love  of  freedom  and  of  justice,  —  so 
deeply  engraven  upon  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  interwoven 
in  the  whole  texture  of  our  social  institutions,  —  a.  thorough  and 
intelligent  acquaintance  with  their  rights,  and  a  firm  determi 
nation  to  maintain  them,  —  in  short,  those  moral  and  intellectual 
qualities  without  which  social  liberty  cannot  exist,  and  over 
which  despotism  can  obtain  no  control,  —  these  stamp  the  char 
acter  and  give  security  to  the  rights  of  the  free  people  of  this 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING.  175 

Commonwealth.  So  long  as  such  a  character  is  maintained,  no 
danger  perhaps  need  be  apprehended  from  the  arbitrary  course 
of  proceeding,  under  the  provision  of  the  Constitution,  to  which  I 
have  alluded.  But,  Sir,  we  have  never  for  a  moment  imagined 
that  the  proceedings  on  this  impeachment  could  be  influenced  or 
affected  by  that  provision.  The  two  modes  of  proceeding  are 
altogether  distinct,  and,  in  my  humble  apprehension,  were  de 
signed  to  effect  totally  distinct  objects.  No,  Sir ;  had  the  House 
of  Representatives  expected  to  attain  their  object  by  any  means 
short  of  the  allegation,  proof,  and  conviction  of  criminal  miscon 
duct,  an  address,  and  not  an  impeachment,  would  have  been  tho 
course  of  proceeding  adopted  by  them." 

These  well-considered  and  weighty  sentences  of  Chief 
Justice  Shaw  show  his  idea  of  the  extent  of  your  power, 
and  will  relieve  your  minds  of  any  undue  apprehension  as 
to  the  danger  of  its  exercise. 

The  people  of  Massachusetts  have  always  chosen  to 
keep  their  judges,  in  some  measure,  dependent  on  the 
popular  will.  It  is  a  Colonial  trait,  and  the  sovereign 
State  has  preserved  it.  Under  the  King,  though  he 
appointed  the  judges,  the  people  jealously  preserved 
their  hold  on  the  bench,  by  keeping  the  salaries  year 
by  year  dependent  on  the  vote  of  the  popular  branch 
of  the  Legislature.  This  control  was  often  exercised. 
When  Judge  Oliver  took  pay  of  the  King,  they  im 
peached  him.  (See  Washburn's  Judicial  History  of 
Massachusetts,  139,  160.)  When  the  Constitution  was 
framed,  the  people  chose  to  keep  the  same  sovereignty 
in  their  own  hands.  Independence  of  judges,  there 
fore,  in  Massachusetts,  Gentlemen,  means,  in  the  words 
of  Mr.  Childs,  "  the  fullest  independence  consistent  with 
their  responsibility' ' 

The  opinions  I  have  read  you  derive  additional  weight 
from  the  fact,  that  all  the  speakers  were  aware  of  the 
grave  nature  of  this  power,  and  some  painted  in  glowing 


176  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LOSING. 

colors  how  liable  to  abuse  it  was.  Still  not  one  proposed 
to  take  it  from  you.  The  most  anxious  only  asked  to 
check  it  by  requiring  a  two-thirds  vote.  This  proposition 
the  Convention  refused  to  accept ;  the  utmost  the  Con 
vention  would  recommend  to  the  people  was,  that  the 
judge  should  have  notice  and  liberty  to  defend  himself. 
Even  this  limitation  on  your  power  the  people  refused 
to  adopt.  They  were  fully  warned,  and  'deliberately,  on 
mature  reflection,  decided  that  it  was  safe  and  wise  to 
intrust  you  with  unlimited  discretion  in  this  respect.  With 
such  a  page  in  our  history,  it  is  not  competent  for  the  press 
or  the  friends  of  Judge  Loring  to  argue  that  no  such  power 
ought  to  have  been  given  you,  and  that  it  is  too  dangerous 
to  be  used.  The  people  alone  have  the  right  to  decide 
that  question,  and  they  have  decided  it.  When,  after  full 
deliberation,  they  gave  you  the  power,  they  said,  in  effect, 
that  occasions  might  arise  requiring  its  exercise,  and  on 
such  fitting  occasions  they  wished  it  exercised.  Doubt 
less,  Gentlemen,  this  is  a  grave  power,  and  one  to  be  used 
only  on  important  occasions.  We  are  bound  to  show  you, 
not  light  and  trifling  reasons  for  the  removal  of  Judge 
Loring,  but  such  grave  and  serious  reasons,  such  weighty 
cause,  as  will  justify  your  interference,  and  make  this  use 
of  your  authority  strengthen  rather  than  weaken  the  proper 
independence  of  the  bench. 

Indeed,  the  power  is  in  itself  a  wise,  good,  and  necessary 
one,  and  should  be  lodged  somewhere  in  every  govern 
ment.  The  Boston  papers,  in  all  their  arguments  on  this 
point,  take  it  for  granted  that  the  people  are  to  be  always 
under  guardianship,  —  that  government  is  a  grand  Probate 
Court  to  prevent  the  people  —  the  insane  and  always 
under-age  people  —  from  wasting  their  own  property  and 
cutting  their  own  throat.  Not  such  is  the  theory  of  re 
publican  institutions.  The  true  theory  is,  that  the  people 
came  of  age  on  the  fourth  day  of  July,  1776,  and  can  be 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING.  177 

trusted  to  manage  their  own  affairs.  The  people,  with 
their  practical  common-sense,  instinctive  feeling  of  right 
and  wrong,  and  manly  love  of  fair  play,  are  the  true  con 
servative  element  in  a  just  government.  It  is  true,  the 
people  are  not  always  right;  but  it  is  true,  also,  that  the 
people  are  not  often  wrong,  —  less  often,  surely,  than  their 
leaders.  The  theory  of  our  government  is,  that  the  purity 
of  the  bench  is  a  matter  which  concerns  every  individual. 
Whenever,  therefore,  guilt,  recklessness,  or  incapacity 
shield  themselves  on  the  bench,  by  technical  shifts  and 
evasions,  against  direct  collision  with  the  law,  it  is  meant 
that  the  reserved  power  of  the  people  shall  intervene,  and 
save  the  State  from  harm. 

It  is  easy  to  conceive  many  occasions  for  the  exercise  of 
such  a  power.  How  many  men  among  us,  by  gross  mis 
conduct  in  railroad  or  banking  companies,  have  incurred 
the  gravest  disapprobation,  and  yet  avoided  legal  convic 
tion  ?  Suppose  such  men  had  been  at  the  same  time 
judges,  will  any  one  say  they  should  have  been  continued 
on  the  bench  ?  Yet,  on  the  remonstrant's  theory,  it  would 
be  an  "abuse  of  power"  to  impeach  or  "address"  them 
off  the  bench !  Suppose  a  judge  by  great  private  immo 
rality  incurs  utter  contempt,  —  is  drunk  every  day  in  the 
week  except  Probate  Court  day,  —  shall  he,  because  he  is 
cunning  enough  to  evade  statutes,  still  hide  himself  under 
the  ermine  ?  Suppose  a  Judge  of  Probate  should  open 
his  court  on  the  days  prescribed  by  the  statute,  and  close 
it  in  half  an  hour,  as  your  Judge  Loring  did  when  he  shut 
up  the  Probate  Court  of  Suffolk  on  Monday,  the  29th  of 
May,  to  hurry  forward  the  kidnapping  of  Anthony  Burns. 
Suppose  some  judge  should  thus  keep  his  court  open  only 
five  minutes  each  probate  day  the  whole  year  through. 
He  violates  no  statute,  though  he  puts  a  stop  to  all  busi 
ness  ;  yet,  according  to  the  arguments  of  the  press  and  the 
remonstrant,  it  would  be  a  gross  abuse  of  power  to  impeach 

12 


178  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

him,  or  address  the  Governor  for  his  removal,  since  he  has 
violated  no  law ! 

Not  such  was  the  good  old  doctrine.  In  the  Prescott 
case,  Judge  Shaw  went  so  far  as  to  contend  that  a  judge 
might  not  only  be  removed  by  address,  but  impeached 

"  for  misconduct  and  maladministration  in  office, 

of  such  a  nature  that  the  ordinary  tribunals  would  not 
take  notice  of  or  punish  them,  in  their  usual  course  of  pro 
ceedings,  and  according  to  the  laws  of  the  land,  and  for 
which,  therefore,  the  offender  would  not  be  indictable." 
(Prescott's  Case,  p.  180.) 

You  may  think,  Gentlemen,  that  I  have  occupied  too 
much  time  in  proving  the  unlimited  extent  of  your  power. 
But  it  seemed  necessary,  since  the  press  which  defends  the 
remonstrant,  and  he  also,  though  they  do  not  in  words 
deny  your  unlimited  authority,  do  so  in  effect.  They 
claim  that  you  destroy  the  independence  of  the  bench, 
and  abuse  your  power,  if  you  exercise  it  in  any  case  but  a 
clear  violation  of  law.  This  is  a  practical  annihilation  of 
the  power.  This  claim  loses  sight  of  the  very  nature  and 
intent  of  the  power,  which  is  well  stated  by  Mr.  Austin, 
when  he  says  that  a  judge  who  has  lost  the  confidence 
of  the  community  ought  to  be  removed,  though  you  can 
prove  no  specific  charges  against  him,  —  though  he  may 
have  violated  no  law,  written  or  unwritten.  Or,  in  words 
said  to  have  been  used  by  Mr.  Rufus  Choate  in  a  recent 
case,  "  A  judicial  officer  may  be  removed  if  found  in 
tellectually  incapable,  or  if  he  has  been  left  to  commit 
some  great  enormity,  so  as  to  show  himself  morally  de 
ranged." 

This  unlimited  power,  then,  Gentlemen,  is  one  that  you 
undoubtedly  possess.  It  is  one  that  the  people  deliber 
ately  planned  and  intended  that  you  should  possess.  It  is 
one  which  the  nature  of  the  government  makes  it  neces 
sary  you  should  possess,  and  that,  on  fitting  occasion,  you 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LOR1NG.  179 

should  have  the  courage  to  use.  True,  it  is  a  grave 
power.  But  what  is  all  government  but  the  exercise  of 
grave  powers  ?  "  When  the  sea  is  calm,  all  boats  alike 
show  mastership  in  floating."  The  merit  of  a  government 
is,  that  it  helps  us  in  critical  times.  All  the  checks  and 
ingenuity  of  our  institutions  are  arranged  to  secure  for  us 
in  these  halls  men  wise  and  able  enough  to  be  trusted 
with  grave  powers,  and  bold  enough  to  use  them  when 
the  times  require.  Let  not,  then,  this  bugbear  of  the 
liability  of  this  power  to  abuse,  deter  you  from  using  it  at 
all.  Lancets  and  knives  are  dangerous  instruments.  The 
usefulness  of  surgeons  is,  that,  when  lancets  are  needed, 
somebody  may  know  how  to  use  them  and  save  life. 

Has,  then,  a  proper  case  occurred  for  the  exercise  of 
this  power  ?  In  other  words,  ought  you  now  to  exercise 
it  ?  The  petitioners  think  you  ought,  and  for  the  follow 
ing  reasons. 

First.  When  Judge  Loring  issued  his  warrant  in  the 
Burns  case,  he  acted  in  defiance  of  the  solemn  convictions 
and  settled  purpose  of  Massachusetts,  —  convictions  and 
purpose  officially  made  known  to  him,  with  all  the  solem 
nity  of  a  statute, 

In  order  to  do  him  the  fullest  justice  on  this  point,  allow 
me  to  read  a  sentence  from  his  remonstrance  :  — 

"  And  I  respectfully  submit,  that  when  (while  acting  as  a  Com 
missioner)  I  received  my  commission  as  Judge  of  Probate,  no  ob 
jection  was  made  by  the  Executive  of  the  Commonwealth,  or  by  any 
other  branch  of  the  government,  to  my  further  discharge  of  the 
duties  of  a  Commissioner;  nor  at  the  passage  of  the  act  of  1850, 
when  the  jurisdiction  aforesaid  was  given  to  the  Commissioners 
of  tho  Circuit  Courts  of  the  United  States,  nor  at  any  time  since, 
was  I  notified  that  the  government  of  Massachusetts,  or  either 
the  executive  or  legislative  branch  thereof,  regarded  the  two 
offices  as  incompatible,  or  were  of  opinion  that  the  same  qualities 
and  experience  which  were  employed  for  the  rights  and  interests 
of  our  own  citizens  should  not  be  employed  for  the  protection  of 


180  REMOVAL   OF   JUDGE   LORING. 

all  legal  rights  of  alleged  fugitives  from  service  or  labor  under 
the  United  States  act  of  1850. 

"  I  make  these  latter  remarks  only  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
respectfully  to  the  notice  and  clear  apprehension  of  your  honor 
able  bodies  the  extreme  injustice  and  want  of  equity  that  would 
be  involved  in  the  removal  of  a  judge  from  office,  for  the  past 
discharge  of  other  official  duties,  not  by  law  made  incompatible 
with  his  duties  as  judge,  against  his  exercise  of  which  no  official 
objection  had  ever  been  raised,  and  which  were  created  and  im 
posed  on  him  by  that  law  of  the  land  which  is  the  supreme  Law 
of  Massachusetts." 

Gentlemen,  this  is  a  mere  evasion.  He  was  made 
Judge  of  Probate  in  1847.  He  then  knew,  as  well  as  you 
and  I  do,  that  Massachusetts  did  regard  the  conduct  of  any 
one  of  her  magistrates  in  aiding  in  the  return  of  a  fugitive 
slave  as  something  disgraceful  and  infamous.  He  had 
solemn  and  official  intimation  of  this.  My  proof  is  the 
statute  of  March  24,  1843,  entitled,  "An  Act  further  to 
protect  personal  liberty  "  :  — 

"  SECT.  1.  No  judge  of  arty  court  of  record  of  this  Common 
wealth,  and  no  justice  of  the  peace,  shall  hereafter  take  cogni 
zance  or  grant  a  certificate  in  cases  that  may  arise  under  the 
third  section  of  an  act  of  Congress,  passed  February  twelfth, 
seventeen  hundred  and  ninety-three,  and  entitled,  *  An  Act  re 
specting  fugitives  from  justice,  and  persons  escaping  from  the 
service  of  their  masters,'  to  any  person  who  claims  any  other 
person  as  a  fugitive  slave  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Common 
wealth. 

"  SECT.  2.  No  sheriff,  deputy  sheriff,  coroner,  constable,  jailer, 
or  other  officer  of  this  Commonwealth  shall  hereafter  arrest  or 
detain,  or  aid  in  the  arrest  or  detention  or  imprisonment,  in  any 
jail  or  other  building  belonging  to  this  Commonwealth,  or  to  any 
county,  city,  or  town  thereof,  of  any  person,  for  the  reason  that 
he  is  claimed  as  a  fugitive  slave. 

"  SECT.  3.  Any  justice  of  the  peace,  sheriff,  deputy  sheriff, 
coroner,  constable,  or  jailer,  who  shall  offend  against  the  provis 
ions  of  this  law,  by  in  any  way  acting,  directly  or  indirectly 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING.  181 

under  the  power  conferred  by  the  third  section  of  the  act  of  Con 
gress  aforementioned,  shall  forfeit  a  sum  not  exceeding  one  thou 
sand  dollars  for  every  such  offence,  to  the  use  of  the  county  where 
said  offence  is  committed,  or  shall  be  subject  to  imprisonment  not 
exceeding  one  year  in  the  county  jail."  (Approved,  March  24, 
1843.) 

The  intent  of  that  statute  is  clear  and  unmistakable. 
It  expresses  the  determined  will  of  the  Commonwealth, 
that  no  magistrate  of  hers  shall  accept  from  the  United 
States  any  authority,  or  take  any  part,  directly  or  in 
directly,  in  returning  fugitive  slaves  to  their  masters.  It 
means  to  set  a  stigma  on  slave-catching  in  this  Common 
wealth.  It  thunders  forth  its  command,  that  no  officer 
shall  hold  the  broad  seal  of  the  State  in  one  hand,  and 
reach  forth  the  other  for  a  slave-catcher's  fee.  This  is 
the  heart  and  gist  of  the  statute.  He  that  runneth  may 
read. 

Technically  construed,  it  may  be  said  only  to  forbid 
that  a  judge,  acting  as  a  judge,  should  issue  a  slave  war 
rant  ;  and  it  may  be  claimed  that  Mr.  Loring  did  not 
transgress  it,  since  he  issued  his  warrant,  not  as  a  judge, 
but  as  a  slave  commissioner.  Technically  speaking,  this 
may  be  so,  and  an  inferior  court  of  justice  would  be  bound 
so  to  regard  it.  But  you  are  not  sitting  as  nisi  prius 
lawyers,  bound  by  quiddling  technicalities  ;  you  are  states 
men,  looking  with  plain,  manly  sense  at  the  essence  of 
things.  Have  you  any  doubt  what  Massachusetts  in 
tended  when  she  enacted  that  statute  ?  Have  you  any 
doubt  that  Mr.  Loring  knew  what  Massachusetts  meant  ? 
Why  does  the  Constitution  give  you  this  power  of  remov 
ing  judges  by  address  ?  To  meet  just  such  cases  as  this  ; 
when  some  individual  has  violated  the  spirit  and  essence 
of  a  law,  but  cannot  be  technically  held  by  impeachments. 
Remember  what  Mr.  Austin  says,  describing  just  this  case 
in  the  extract  I  have  twice  quoted  from  his  speech  in  the 


182  EEMOVAL  OF  JUDGE   LORING. 

Convention.  If  you  allow  yourselves  to  be  diverted  from 
the  exercise  of  the  power  by  such  technicalities,  you  forget 
the  very  purpose  for  which  it  was  given,  and  practically 
annihilate  it. 

It  is  not  true,  then,  as  Mr.  Loring  claims,  that,  when  he 
received  his  commission,  "  no  objection  was  made  by  the 
Executive  of  the  Commonwealth,  or  of  any  other  branch 
of  the  government,  to  his  further  discharge  of  the  duties 
of  a  Commissioner/' — meaning  the  duty  of  catching  slaves. 
The  statute  of  1843,  then  in  full  force  and  effect,  was 
clear  and  official  notice  to  him  what  "  objection "  the 
Common  wealth- had  to  the  returning  of  slaves. 

But  it  is  said  the  statute  was  passed  in  1843,  and  only 
prohibited  officers  from  acting  under  the  slave  act  of  1793  ; 
it  cannot  have  any  reference  to  the  slave  act  of  1850,  since 
this  was  not  in  existence  in  1843,  and  Mr.  Loring's  action 
in  the  Burns  case  was  under  the  act  of  1850. 

This  is  another  technical  evasion,  but  not  as  good  even 
as  the  first ;  because,  in  the  Sims  case,  (7  Gushing,  285,) 
which  Mr.  Loring  cites,  Judge  Shaw  holds  the  act  of  1850 
constitutional,  because  it  is  so  precisely  like  the  act  of  1793  ; 
and  Mr.  Loring,  in  his  Burns  judgment,  takes  the  same 
view.  Now,  if  the  two  acts  are  so  precisely  alike  that  the 
constitutionality  of  one  proves  the  constitutionality  of  the 
other,  then  they  are  such  twins  as  to  be  both  within  the 
meaning  and  intent  of  our  statute  of  1843. 

When  the  counsel  of  Sims  and  Burns  wished  to  argue 
the  unconstitutionally  of  the  act  of  1850,  on  the  ground 
that  it  went  far  beyond  anything  judicially  recognized  in 
the  act  of  1793,  then  Judges  Shaw  and  Loring  find  the 
two  acts  so  much  alike  that  the  argument  is  unnecessary. 
When  Mr.  Loring's  friends  would  defend  him,  then  these 
two  acts  are  so  different,  that  our  law  of  1843  can  apply 
only  to  the  first !  To  plunge  an  innocent  and  free  man  like 
Burns  into  slavery,  against  law  and  evidence,  these  stat- 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING.  183 

utes  are  just  alike  ;  to  save  Judge  Loring  from  the  act 
of  1843,  they  are  different  as  white  and  black!* 

But  even  this  technicality  is  of  no  avail.  The  official 
action  of  the  State  has  forever  closed  this  door  of  escape. 

While  Congress  was  discussing  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill, 
which  was  finally  passed  September  18,  1850,  our  Legis 
lature  passed  the  following  resolutions,  which  the  Gov 
ernor  approved,  May  1,  1850  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  sentiments  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts, 
as  expressed  in  their  legal  enactments,  in  relation  to  the  deliver 
ing  up  of  fugitive  slaves,  remain  unchanged ;  and  inasmuch  as 
the  legislation  necessary  to  give  effect  to  the  clause  of  the  Con 
stitution  relative  to  this  subject  is  within  the  exclusive  jurisdic 
tion  of  Congress,  we  hold  it  to  be  the  duty  of  that  body  to  pass 
such  laws  only  in  regard  thereto  as  will  be  sustained  by  the 
public  sentiment  of  the  Free  States,  where  such  laws  are  to  be 
enforced,  and  which  shall  especially  secure  to  all  persons,  whose 
surrender  may  be  claimed  as  having  escaped  from  labor  and  ser 
vice  in  other  States,  the  right  of  having  the  validity  of  such  claim 
determined  by  a  jury  in  the  State  where  such  claim  is  made. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  people  of  Massachusetts,  in  the  mainte 
nance  of  these  their  well-known  and  invincible  principles,  expect 
that  all  their  officers  and  representatives  will  adhere  to  them  at 
all  times,  on  all  occasions,  and  under  all  circumstances."  (Ap 
proved,  May  1,  1850.) 

*  I  might  have  pushed  this  argument  further.  The  act  of  1 850  is  styled 
"  An  Act  to  amend,  and  supplementary  to,  the  Act  entitled  '  An  Act  respect 
ing  Fugitives,'  &c.,  approved  Feb.  12,  1793."  It  is,  then,  properly  a  part 
of  the  act  of  1793,  and  acting  under  it  is  not  only  substantially  within  the 
prohibition  of  our  statute  of  1 843,  but  perhaps  is,  in  strict  law,  included  in 
that  prohibition.  At  any  rate,  how  do  the  statutes  of  1793  and  1850  dilfcr  * 
In  1 793,  Congress  enacted  that  certain  State  officers  should  be  ex  officio  slave- 
catchers.  Massachusetts,  in  1843,  forbade  her  magistrates  to  accept  the  au 
thority.  In  1850,  Congress  makes  it  necessary  that  a  man  should  have  a 
separate  commission  to  entitle  him  to  catch  slaves.  Massachusetts  reiterates 
her  orders.  In  defiance  of  these,  Judge  Loring  accepts  a  commission.  Te 
the  case  not  substantially  within  the  meaning  of  the  act  of  1843  ? 


184  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

Observe,  the  Commonwealth  reaffirms  the  principle  of 
her  former  legal  enactments,  —  that  is,  the  act  of  1843  ; 
and  expects  all  her  "  officers  to  adhere  to  them  at  all  times, 
on  all  occasions,  and  under  all  circumstances" 

What  shall  we  say  now  to  Mr.  Loring's  claim,  that 
neither  when  he  received  the  commission  as  Judge  of 
Probate,  nor  at  any  time  since,  was  he  notified  "  by  the 
government  of  Massachusetts,  or  by  the  executive  or 
legislative  branch  thereof,"  that  slave-catching  and  bear 
ing  office  under  Massachusetts  were  incompatible  !  Are 
not  these  resolutions  substantially  a  re-enactment  of  the 
statute  of  1843,  distinctly  applying  to  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Bill  of  1850,  and  officially  warning  all  officers  that  the 
State  expected  them  to  abstain  from  taking  part  in  the 
execution  of  that  act,  as  much  as  of  the  act  of  1793  ? 

Look  at  the  case,  Gentlemen.  A  sovereign  State  issues 
her  mandate,  that  no  magistrate  of  hers  shall  aid  in  catch 
ing  slaves.  Seven  years  later,  she  solemnly  reiterates  the 
order,  and  directs  her  officers  to  remember  it  on  all  occa 
sions.  In  open,  contemptuous  defiance  of  all  this,  one  of 
her  judges  adjourns  his  own  court  to  hold  one  that  dooms 
a  man  to  bondage.  The  Legislature  meet  and  talk  of  re 
moving  him.  But  the  judge,  in  a  tone  of  indignant  inno 
cence,  exclaims  :  "  What !  turn  me  out  for  a  mere  differ 
ence  of  opinion !  Have  I  not  evaded  the  law  ?  If  you 
remove  such  an  innocent  and  law-abiding  judge  as  I  am, 
you  will  destroy  the  independence  of  the  bench  !  "  Yes, 
truly  ;  that  sort  of  independence  which  consists  in  defying 
the  State  in  order  to  serve  a  party,  or  minister  to  the 
ambition  of  friends. 

Some  men  allege  that  the  same  reasoning  would  con 
demn  Judge  Shaw  for  refusing  to  set  Sims  free,  by  habeas 
corpus,  from  the  grasp  of  the  claimant.  But  surely  he 
must  be  stone  blind  who  sees  no  difference  between  a  judge 
like  Shaw,  who,  thinking  he  has  no  power  to  arrest  the 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING.  185 

Slave  Act  when  once  set  in  motion,  refuses  to  interfere, 
and  a  judge  like  Loring,  who  actually  sets  the  Slave  Act 
in  motion,  and  personally  executes  it !  The  statute  of 
1843  only  orders  our  officers  not  to  aid  in  catching  slaves. 
It  does  not  order  them  to  prevent  everybody  else  from 
catching  slaves.  Loring  actually  hunted  a  slave,  and  sent 
him  to  Virginia.  Shaw  only  declared  himself  unauthorized 
to  prevent  George  T.  Curtis  from  hunting  fugitive  slaves. 
Surely,  there  is  some  slight  difference  here. 

In  consenting,  then,  to  .act  as  a  Slave  Commissioner, 
while  holding  the  office  of  a  Probate  Judge,  Mr.  Loring 
defied  the  well-known,  settled,  religious  convictions  of  the 
State,  officially  made  known  to  him.  The  question  was 
one  of  vital,  practical  morality  of  the  gravest  importance  ; 
one  where  justice  was  on  one  side  and  infamy  on  the 
other.  He  cannot  complain  if  you  consider  this  heedless 
or  heartless  choice  of  the  infamous  side,  this  open  de 
fiance,  on  so  momentous  a  matter,  sufficient  cause  for  his 
removal. 

My  second  reason  is,  that  the  very  method  of  the  trial 
of  Anthony  Burns  shows  Mr.  Loring  unfit  to  be  continued 
longer  on  the  bench.  I  am  not  now  dealing  with  the 
point  that  he  did  act ;  I  have  said  that  his  mere  acting  in 
the  case  was  a  defiance  of  the  Commonwealth  ;  but  I 
now  say,  that  the  manner  of  his  acting  is  another  ground 
for  which  he  ought  to  be  removed,  and  shows  him  to  be 
unfit  for  the  office  of  a  judge. 

Anthony  Burns  was  arrested  at  eight  o'clock  on  Wed 
nesday  evening.  He  was  hurried  to  the  court-house, 
and  concealed  there  within  four  walls.  He  was  not  al 
lowed  to  see  anybody  but  the  slave  claimant,  the  Marshal, 
and  the  police.  At  nine  o'clock  on  Thursday  morning, 
our  Judge  of  Probate,  Mr.  Edward  G.  Loring,  the  Slave 
Commissioner,  appeared  in  his  court-room,  with  the  slave 
claimant  and  his  witnesses,  the  alleged  fugitive,  the  Mar- 


186  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

shal,  and  the  police.  He  proceeded  to  trial.  Trembling, 
ignorant,  confused,  astounded,  friendless,  not  knowing 
what  to  say  or  where  to  look,  that  unhappy  man,  Burns, 
sat,  handcuffed,  with  a  policeman  on  each  side.  The 
Commissioner  proceeded  to  try  him.  By  accident,  Mr. 
Richard  H.  Dana,  Jr.  had  heard  that  such  a  trial  was  to 
be  held,  and  had  reached  the  court-room.  By  accident, 
another  learned  counsel,  who  sits  by  my  side  (Charles  M. 
Ellis,  Esq.),  heard  that  such  a  scene  was  enacting,  and 
hurried  to  the  court-house.  I  heard  of  it  in  the  street. 
Mr.  Theodore  Parker  was  notified,  and  we  went  to  the 
court-room.  We  found  Robert  Morris,  Esq.,  already 
there.  Mr.  Morris,  a  member  of  the  bar,  had  attempted 
to  speak  to  Burns,  — » the  policemen  forbade  him.  The 
melancholy  farce  had  proceeded  for  about  half  an  hour. 
In  two  hours  more,  so  far  as  any  one  could  then  see,  the 
judgment  would  have  been  given,  the  certificate  signed, 
the  victim  beyond  our  reach.  There  sat  the  Judge  of 
Probate,  clothed  with  the  ermine  of  Massachusetts  ;  be 
fore  him  cowered  the  helpless  object  of  cruel  legislation, 
—  the  crushed  victim  of  an  inhuman  system.  Mr.  Dana 
had  moved  the  court  before  to  defer  the  trial ;  but  the 
Commissioner  proceeded  to  examine  the  witness.  After  a 
short  time,  Mr.  Dana  rose,  (he  had  no  right  to  rise, 
technically  speaking,  —  he  rose  as  a  citizen  merely,  not  as 
counsel,)  and  I  read  you  what  he  said  :  — 

"May  it  please  your  Honor:  I  rise  to  address  the  court  as 
amicus  curice,  for  I  cannot  say  that  I  am  regularly  of  counsel  for 
the  person  at  the  bar.  Indeed,  from  the  few  words  I  have  been 
enabled  to  hold  with  him,  and  from  what  I  can  learn  from  others 
who  have  talked  with  him,  I  am  satisfied  that  he  is  not  in  a 
condition  to  determine  whether  he  will  have  counsel  or  not,  or 
whether  or  not  and  how  he  shall  appear  for  his  defence.  He 
declines  to  say  whether  any  one  shall  appear  for  him,  or  whether 
ne  will  defend  or  not. 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LOR1NG.  187 

u  Under  these  circumstances,  I  submit  to  your  Honor's  judg 
ment,  that  time  should  be  allowed  to  the  prisoner  to  recover  him 
self  from  the  stupefaction  of  his  sudden  arrest,  and  his  novel  and 
distressing  situation,  and  have  opportunity  to  consult  with  friends 
and  members  of  the  bar,  and  determine  what  course  he  will  pur 
sue 

"  He  does  not  know  what  he  is  saying.  I  say  to  your  Honor, 
as  a  member  of  the  bar,  on  my  personal  responsibility,  that  from 
what  I  have  seen  of  the  man,  and  what  I  have  learnt  from  others 
who  have  seen  him,  that  he  is  not  in  a  fit  state  to  decide  for  him 
self  what  he  will  do.  He  has  just  been  arrested  and  brought  into 
this  scene,  with  this  immense  stake  of  freedom  or  slavery  for  life 
at  issue,  surrounded  by  strangers,  —  and  even  if  he  should  plead 
guilty  to  the  claim,  the  court  ought  not  to  receive  the  plea  under 
such  circumstances. 

"  It  is  but  yesterday  that  the  court  at  the  other  end  of  the 
building  refused  to  receive  a  plea  of  guilty  from  a  prisoner.  The 
court  never  will  receive  this  plea  in  a  capital  case,  without  the 
fullest  proof  that  the  prisoner  makes  it  deliberately,  and  under 
stands  its  meaning  and  his  own  situation,  and  has  consulted  with 
his  friends.  In  a  case  involving  freedom  or  slavery  for  life,  this 
court  will  not  do  less 

"  I  know  enough  of  this  tribunal  to  know  that  it  will  not  lend 
itself  to  the  hurrying  off  a  man  into  slavery  to  accommodate  any 
man's  personal  convenience,  before  he  has  even  time  to  recover 
his  stupefied  faculties,  and  say  whether  he  has  a  defence  or  not. 
Even  without  a  suggestion  from  an  amicus  curice,  the  court  would, 
of  its  own  motion,  see  to  it  that  no  such  advantage  was  taken. 

"  The  counsel  for  the  claimant  says,  that,  if  the  man  were  out 
of  his  mind,  he  would  not  object.  Out  of  his  mind  !  Please  your 
Honor,  if  you  had  ever  reason  to  fear  that  a  prisoner  was  not  in 
full  possession  of  his  mind,  you  would  fear  it  in  such  a  case  as 
this.  But  I  have  said  enough.  I  am  confident  your  Honor  will 
not  decide  so  momentous  an  issue  against  a  man  without  counsel 
and  without  opportunity." 

Again,  in  his  argument,  alluding  to  the  same  scene,  Mr. 
Dana  says :  — 


188  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING. 

"  Burns  was  arrested  suddenly,  on  a  false  pretence,  coming 
home  at  nightfall  from  his  day's  work,  and  hurried  into  custody, 
among  strange  men,  in  a  strange  place,  and  suddenly,  whether 
claimed  rightfully  or  claimed  wrongfully,  he  saw  he  was  claimed 
as  a  slave,  and  his  condition  burst  upon  him  in  a  flood  of  terror. 
This  was  at  night.  You  saw  him,  Sir,  the  next  day,  and  you 
remember  the  state  he  was  then  in.  You  remember  his  stupefied 
and  terrified  condition.  You  remember  his  hesitation,  his  timid 
glance  about  the  room,  even  when  looking  in  the  mild  face  of 
justice.  How  little  your  kind  words  reassured  him.  Sir,  the 
day  after  the  arrest,  you  felt  obliged  to  put  off  his  trial  two  days, 
because  he  was  not  in  a  condition  to  know  or  decide  what  he 
would  do." 

Mr.  Ellis  rose  also,  and  protested  against  the  trial. 
Gentlemen,  what  a  scene  !  A  man  clothed  in  the  ermine 
of  Massachusetts  has  before  him  a  helpless  man,  —  in  the 
words  of  Mr.  Dana,  "  terrified,  stupefied,  intimidated,"  — 
and  begins  to  try  him.  If  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Com 
monwealth  should  find  the  veriest  vagrant  from  the 
streets  indicted  for  murder  by  twenty-three  jurors,  and 
solemnly  and  legally  set  before  him,  he  would  not  take 
upon  himself  to  proceed  to  trial  without  the  man  had 
counsel,  —  every  lawyer  knows  this.  And  yet  this  man, 
who  ought  to  have  shown  the  discretion  and  humanity  of 
a  judge,  was  proceeding  in  a  trial  so  enormous  and  fear 
ful,  that  counsel  coming  in  by  accident  felt  urged  to  rise 
in  their  places  and  interrupt  him,  protesting,  as  citizens  of 
Massachusetts,  that  this  mockery  of  justice  should  not  go 
on.  You  have  a  Judge  of  Probate  who  needs  to  have 
accident  fill  his*  court-room  with  honest  men,  to  call  him 
back  to  his  duty.  The  petitioners  say  that  such  a  man  is 
not  fit  to  sit  upon  the  Bench  of  Massachusetts.  Do  we 
exaggerate  the  importance  of  the  occasion  ?  Let  me  read 
a  single  sentence  from  Dr.  Channing :  — 

"  This  Constitution  was  not  established  to  send  back  slaves  to 


REMOVAL    OF   JUDGE    LORING.  189 

chains.  The  article  requiring  this  act  of  the  Free  States  was 
forced  on  them  by  the  circumstances  of  the  times,  and  submitted 
to  as  a  hard  necessity.  It  did  not  enter  into  the  essence  of  the 
instrument ;  whilst  the  security  of  freedom  was  its  great,  living, 
all-pervading  idea.  We  see  the  tendency  of  slavery  to  warp  the 
Constitution  to  its  purposes,  in  the  law  for  restoring  the  flying 
bondman.  Under  this,  not  a  few,  having  not  only  the  same  nat 
ural  but  legal  rights  with  ourselves,  have  been  subjected  to  the 
lash  of  the  overseer. 

"  But  a  higher  law  than  the  Constitution  protests  against  the 
act  of  Congress  on  this  point.  According  to  the  law  of  nature, 
no  greater  crime  against  a  human  being  can  be  committed  than 
to  make  him  a  slave 

"  To  condemn  a  man  to  perpetual  slavery  is  as  solemn  a  sen 
tence  as  to  condemn  him  to  death.  Before  being  thus  doomed, 
he  has  a  right  to  all  the  means  of  defence  which  are  granted  to  a 
man  who  is  tried  for  his  life.  All  the  rules,  forms,  solemnities, 
by  which  innocence  is  secured  from  being  confounded  with  guilt, 
he  has  a  right  to  demand.  In  the  present  case,  the  principle  is 
eminently  applicable,  that  many  guilty  should  escape,  rather  than 
that  one  innocent  man  should  suffer  ;  because  the  guilt  of  running 
away  from  an  '  owner '  is  of  too  faint  a  color  to  be  seen  by  some 
of  the  best  eyes,  whilst  that  of  enslaving  the  free  is  of  the  darkest 
hue." 

Dr.  Charming  would  have  all  the  forms  and  solemnities 
of  justice,  usual  in  cases  where  life  hangs  on  the  issue, 
rigidly  observed,  when  a  slave  case  is  to  be  determined. 
Your  Judge  of  Probate  arrests  a  man  at  night ;  no  one 
knows  of  it ;  at  the  earliest  hour  in  the  morning  that  a 
court  ever  sits,  he  opens  his  court;  this  poor,  trembling, 
friendless  victim,  who  hardly  dared  to  look  up  and  meet 
his  eye,  is  brought  before  him,  and  he  proceeds  to  try 
him.  Strangers  come  in  and  say,  he  is  too  stupefied  to  be 
tried.  Still  the  judge  goes  on,  and  they  sit  awhile,  their 
blood  boiling  within  them,  till  they  feel  compelled  to  rise, 
and  solemnly  protest  against  this  insult  to  all  the  forms  of 


190  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

justice ;  and  the  court,  after  the  repeated  protests  of  two 
members  of  the  bar,  at  length  consents  to  put  off  that  trial, 
allow  the  unhappy  man  to  recover  himself,  consult  with 
friends,  and  decide  what  course  to  pursue. 

Why,  Gentlemen,  if  a  man  has  committed  murder,  and 
has  been  indicted  by  a  jury,  the  statute  provides  that  he 
shall  have  time  allowed  him  to  prepare  for  his  defence, 
have  a  copy  of  his  indictment,  and  a  list  of  the  witnesses 
against  him ;  and  when  it  is  all  done,  the  Supreme  Court 
would  not   touch  the   case   until   they  had  assigned  him 
counsel.     They  would  fear  to   draggle    their   ermine    in 
blood.    But  here  is  a  Massachusetts  Judge  of  Probate  with 
whom  it  is  but  the  accident  of  an  accident,  but  the  impu 
dence    of  counsel,    so    to   speak,    that   prevents   such   an 
^outrage  as  Mr.  Dana's  protest  describes.     Now,  your  peti- 
]  tioners  ask,  in  the  name  of  Massachusetts,  for  a  judge 
•<  who  can  be  safely  trusted  in  a  private  chamber  with  an 
^  innocent  man. 

I  recall  the  scene  in  that  court-room,  while  our  hope 
that  the  judge  would  postpone  that  case  hung  trembling 
in  the  balance.  We  were  none  of  us  sure  that  even  the 
indignant,  unintermitted  protests  of  these  members  of  the 
bar  would  secure  the  postponement  of  that  trial.  Think 
of  the  difference  in  this  case  !  You  are  trying  Mr.  Loring 
for  continuance  in  his  office.  He  comes  here  with  all  the 
advantages  of  education,  wealth,  social  position,  profes 
sional  discipline,  everything  on  his  side,  and  can  choose 
when  he  will  be  tried.  Around  him  are  troops  of  friends. 
Influential  journals  defend  his  rights.  But  that  poor  vic 
tim —  what  a  contrast!  According  to  Dr.  Channing,  it 
was  as  much  as  life  that  hung  in  the  balance.  The  old 
English  law  says  that  the  judge  is  counsel  for  the  prison 
ers.  There  were  no  such  promptings  here  as  led  the 
judge  to  say,  "  I  shall  not  try  that  man  unless  he  has 
counsel,  and  all  the  safeguards  and  checks  of  a  judicial 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING.  191 

The  hapless  victim,  too  ignorant  at  the 
best  to  know  his  own  rights  or  how  to  defend  them,  was 
then  stunned  by  the  overwhelming  blow,  —  by  the  arrest, 
and  the  sight  of  the  horrible  pit  into  which  he  was  to  be 
plunged.  Over  his  prostrate  body  this  Massachusetts 
judge  of  the  fatherless  and  widow  opens  his  court,  ar>d 
begins  to  hold  the  mockery  of  a  trial !  If  you  continue 
him  in  office,  you  should  appoint  some  one,  —  some  "flap 
per,"  as  Dean  Swift  says,  —  some  humane  man,  to  wait 
upon  his  court,  and  for  the  honor  of  the  State  remind 
him  when  it  will  be  but  decent  to  remember  justice  and 
mercy,  for  he  is  not  fit  to  go  alone. 

Do  you  ask  us  what  course  Mr.  Loring  should  have 
adopted  ?  We  answer,  the  same  course  that  any  merely 
decent  judge  would  adopt  in  such  a  case.  Here  was  a 
man  arrested  some  twelve  hours  before  on  a  false  pre 
tence,  and  kept  shut  up  from  all  his  friends.  All  this 
Mr.  Loring  knew,  or  was  bound  to  know,  since  such  has 
been  the  constant  practice  in  all  slave  cases,  here  and  else 
where.  The  first  duty  of  a  just  judge  was  to  tell  the 
man,  truly  and  plainly,  what  he  was  arrested  for,  —  see 
that  his  friends  had  free  access  to  him,  and  fix  some  future 
day  to  commence  his  trial,  leaving  time  sufficient  to  con 
sult  and  prepare  a  defence.  This  is  what  the  statutes  of 
every  civilized  state  ordain,  in  cases  where  even  ten  dol 
lars  are  in  dispute.  The  first  word  that  William  Brent, 
the  witness,  was  allowed  to  speak  on  the  stand  in  such  cir 
cumstances  was  the  death-knell  to  any  claim  Mr.  Loring 
might  have  to  be  thought  a  humane  man,  a  good  lawyer, 
or  a  just  judge.  A  statute  which  the  whole  civilized 
world  regards  as  the  most  infamous  on  record  is  executed 
by  men  who  claim  to  be  lawyers,  judges,  and  Christians, 
with  a  violence  and  haste  which  doubles  its  mischief. 
These  slave  commissioners,  while  constantly  prating  of 
the  "painful  duty"  their  allegiance  to  law  entails  on  them, 


192  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING. 

contrive  to  add  by  their  haste  to  the  brutality  and  cruelty 
even  of  the  Slave  Act.  Knowing  the  cruel  nature  of  the 
statute  he  was  executing,  and  the  routine  of  lies  and  close 
confinement  always  found  in  slave  cases,  Mr.  Loring's  first 
duty,  after  his  court  was  open,  was  to  adjourn  it  for  three 
days,  at  least,  taking  measures  that  Burns  should  mean 
time  see  friends  and  counsel,  to  consult  on  his  defence. 
All  Mr.  Loring's  friends  can  say  for  him  is,  that  he  was 
only  acting  as  all  other  slave  commissioners  act,  and  that 
no  harm  was  done,  since  the  Abolitionists  came  in  and 
secured  Burns  a  trial !  As  if  the  infamous  slave-prisons 
of  Curtis  and  Ingraham  were  precedents  for  any  court  to 
follow !  As  if  any  man  was  proved  fit  to  be  a  judge  by 
alleging  that  strangers  prevented  his  doing  all  the  mischief 
he  intended ! 

The  case  was  adjourned  to  Saturday. 

Where  do  we  next  meet  this  specimen  of  Massachusetts 
humanity  and  judicial  decorum  ? 

It  was  necessary  some  one  should  see  Burns  to  ar 
range  for  his  having  counsel.  The  United  States  Mar 
shal  refused  us  admission  to  the  cell.  On  Friday  I 
went  to  Mr.  Loring  at  Cambridge,  where  he  was  Law 
Lecturer  in  Harvard  College,  and  asked  him  for  an 
order  directing  the  Marshal  to  allow  me  to  see  the 
prisoner.  He  sits  down  and  writes  a  letter,  authoriz 
ing  me  to  cross  that  barrier  and  see  Burns;  and  as  he 
hands  it  to  me,  he  says:  "  Mr.  Phillips,  the  case  is  so 
clear,  that  I  do  not  think  you  will  be  justified  in  placing 
any  obstacles  in  the  way  of  this  manV  going  back,  AS  HE 
PROBABLY  WILL"!!  What  right  had  he  to  think  Burns 
would  go  back  ?  He  had  heard  only  one  witness ;  yet  he 
says,  "  The  case  is  so  clear,  that  I  do  not  think  you  will  be 
justified  in  placing  any  obstacles  in  the  way  of  this  man's 
going  lack,  AS  HE  PROBABLY  WILL"!!! 

Suppose,  Mr.  Chairman,  that,  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Web- 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING.  193 

ster,  after  he  had  been  indicted,  but  before  he  had  been 
put  on  trial,  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Commonwealth  had 
said  to  Mr.  Sohier,  or  any  other  of  the  counsel :  "  Sir,  I 
do  not  think  you  will  be  justified  in  placing  any  obstacles 
in  the  way  of  this  man's  being  hung,  as  he  probably  will!''1 
What  would  be  thought  of  the  judge  who  should  proceed 
to  try  a  man  for  his  life,  after  expressing  such  an  opinion 
on  the  case  to  be  brought  before  him  ?  Yet  such  was  the 
mood  of  mind  of  this  Judge  of  Probate,  that,  without 
hearing  argument  or  testimony,  —  only  the  disjointed  story 
of  a  single  witness,  interrupted  by  the  protests  of  Messrs. 
Dana  and  Ellis,  —  the  mere  disjecta  membra  of  a  trial,  — 
nothing,  —  he  had  so  far  made  up  his  mind,  that  he  could 
warn  me  from  attempting  to  do  anything  to  save  the  man 
from  the  doom  to  which  he  was  devoted,  011  the  ground  of 
the  probability  of  his  being  given  up !  "A  judge  who 
proceeds  on  half  evidence  will  not  do  quarter  justice,"  says 
an  old  English  essayist.  What  proportion,  then,  of  jus 
tice  may  we  expect  from  a  judge  who  decides  on  no 
evidence  at  all? 

I  ask  (I  was  going  to  say)  the  judges  of  the  Common 
wealth  of  Massachusetts,  —  men  of  fair  fame  and  judicial 
reputation,  —  whether  a  person  of  that  temper  of  mind  is 
fit  to  sit  by  their  side  ?  I  ask  any  man  who  loves  the 
honor  of  the  Bench,  who  desires  to  see  none  but  high- 
minded,  conscientious,  humane,  just  judges,  whether  the 
petitioners  who  ask  for  the  removal  of  such  an  individual 
are  attacking  or  supporting  the  honor  of  the  Bench  of 
Massachusetts,  —  its  real  strength  and  independence  ?  It 
seems  to  me  that  we  are  cutting  off  a  corrupt  member, 
and  securing  for  the  rest  the  only  source  of  strength,  the 
confidence  of  the  Commonwealth.  The  Bench  is  not 
weakened  when  we  remove  a  bad  judge,  but  when  we 
retain  him. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  this  Legislature  - 

13 


194  REMOVAL    OF   JUDGE   LORING. 

respectfully  be  it  said  —  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  this 
Legislature  to  command  the  respect  of  this  Common 
wealth  for  a  Bench  on  which  sits  Edward  Greely  Loring. 
You  may  refuse  to  remove  him ;  but  you  cannot  make  the 
people  respect  a  Bench  upon  which  he  sits.  If  any  man 
here  loves  the  judiciary,  and  wishes  to  secure  its  indepen 
dence  and  its  influence  with  the  people,  let  him  aid  us  to 
cut  off  the  offending  member. 

Thirdly.  Gentlemen,  where  is  your  Judge  next  heard 
of?  He  is  next  heard  of  at  midnight,  on  Saturday,  the 
27th  of  May,  drawing  up  a  bill  of  sale  of  Anthony 
Burns,  which  now  exists  in  his  own  handwriting !  Be 
fore  the  trial  was  begun,  he  sits  down  and  writes  a  bill 
of  sale :  — 

"  Know  all  men  by  these  presents,  —  That  I,  Charles  F.  Suttle, 
of  Alexandria,  in  Virginia,  in  consideration  of  twelve  hundred 
dollars,  to"  me  paid,  do  hereby  release  and  discharge,  quitclaim 
and  convey  to  Antony  Byrnes,  his  liberty ;  and  I  hereby  manu 
mit  and  release  him  from  all  claims  and  services  to  me  forever, 
hereby  giving  him  his  liberty  to  all  intents  and  effects  forever. 

"  In  testimony  whereof,  I  have  hereto  set  my  hand  and  seal, 
this  twenty-seventh  day  of  May,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  eighteen 
hundred  and  fifty-four." 

Gentlemen,  suppose,  while  Dr.  Webster  sat  in  the  dock, 
before  the  trial  commenced,  Chief  Justice  Shaw  had  sum 
moned  Mrs.  Webster  to  his  side,  and  said,  "  I  advise  you 
to  get  a  petition  to  the  Governor  to  have  your  husband 
pardoned;  I  think  he  will  be  found  guilty!"  Why,  he 
would  have  been  scouted  from  one  end  of  the  Common 
wealth  to  the  other.  Suppose  a  deed  of  land  was  in 
dispute,  and  before  the  case  began,  the  judge  should  call 
one  of  the  claimants  before  him  and  say,  "  I  advise  you  to 
compromise  this  matter,  for  I  think  your  deed  is  not  worth 
a  straw !  "  Who  would  trust  his  case  to  such  a  judge  ? 
But  here  is  a  man  put  before  a  judge  to  be  tried  on  an 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

issue  which  Dr.  Channing  says  is  as  solemn  as  that  of  life 
or  death,  and  the  judge  is  found  at  midnight,  with  the 
pregnant  intimation  that  that  man  must  be  bought,  or  he 
is  not  safe  !  What  right  had  he  to  say  that  ?  Mr.  Chair  • 
man,  the  case  may  have  been  so  clear  even  then,  before  it 
was  half  begun,  that  every  man  in  the  Commonwealth, 
save  one,  would  have  been  obliged  to  say  that  Burns  was 
a  fugitive ;  but  there  was  one  pair  of  lips  that  honor  and 
official  propriety  ought  to  have  sealed,  and  those  were  the 
lips  of  the  judge  who  was  trying  the  case.  Yet  he  is  the 
very  man  who  is  found  babbling !  He  seemed  to  be  utterly 
lost  to  all  the  proprieties  of  his  position.  Colonel  Suttle 
selling  Burns  on  the  27th  of  May !  What  even  legal  right 
in  Burns  had  Colonel  Suttle  then  to  convey  ?  None.  No 
law  knew  of  any.  Yet  the  very  judge  trying  the  case  vol 
unteers  to  suppose  a  title  based  on  his  own  decision,  which 
ought  then  to  have  been  unknown,  even  to  himself.  Suf 
folk  Court-House  is  turned  into  a  slave-auction  block ; 
and  the  Slave  Commissioner,  the  trial  hardly  commenced, 
jumps  upon  the  stand, — not  needing  to  lay  aside  what 
ever  judicial  robes  a  Slave  Commissioner  may  be  supposed 
to  wear ! 

Fourthly.  The  Commissioner  knew  how  general  was 
the  opinion  among  lawyers,  that  a  writ  of  replevin  might 
be  served  after  his  judgment  and  before  the  affidavit  of 
the  claimant  was  made.  He  knew  the  anxiety  of  the 
friends  of  Burns  to  test  the  possibility  of  thus  legally  se 
curing  his  release  by  Massachusetts  law.  But  in  the  Com 
missioner's  hot  haste  and  obstinate  determination  to  have 
every  law  except  those  of  this  Commonwealth  obeyed  to 
the  letter,  he  arranged  and  conspired  with  Colonel  Suttle 
and  the  United  States  Marshal  to  have  all  the  papers  exe 
cuted  in  such  secrecy,  and  so  exactly  at  the  same  moment, 
as  to  deprive  Burns  of  all  chance  from  this  measure. 
How  eminently  worthy  such  plotting  as  this  of  a  Massa- 


196  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

chusetts  judge !  —  of  one  who  assures   you  that  he  has 
scrupulously  obeyed  the  laws  of  Massachusetts! 

Well,  Gentlemen,  it  is  said,  —  I  cannot  state  it  on  any 
thing  but  rumor,  —  that,  as  the  crowning  act  of  his  unju 
dicial  conduct,  he  communicated  his  decision  to  one  party 
twenty  hours  before  ho  communicated  it  to  the  other,  so 
that  Messrs.  Smith,  Hallett,  Thomas,  Suttle,  &  Co.  had 
time  to  send  down  into  Dock  Square  and  have  bullets  cast 
for  the  soldiers  who  were  to  be  employed  to  assist  the 
slave-hunter;  had  time  to  inform  the  newspapers  in  the 
city  what  they  intended  to  do  ;  —  while  Messrs.  Dana  and 
Ellis,  counsel  for  the  prisoner,  were  allowed  to  go  to  their 
homes  in  utter  ignorance  whether  that  decision  would  be 
one  way  or  another.  Where  can  you  find,  in  the  whole 
catalogue  of  judicial  enormities,  an  instance  when  a  judge 
revealed  his  decision  to  one  party  and  concealed  it  from 
the  other  ?  If  he  thought  it  necessary,  on  any  grounds  of 
public  security  or  from  private  reasons  of  propriety,  to 
inform  them  what  his  decision  was  to  be,  he  should  have 
said :  "  Gentleman,  I  can  meet  you  only  in  open  court, 
in  the  presence  of  counsel  on  both  sides.  I  cannot  speak 
to  you,  Mr.  Thomas,  unless  Mr.  Dana  or  Mr.  Ellis  is 
here.  Call  them,  and  then  I  will  tell  you  what  my  decis 
ion  is  to  be."  At  four  o'clock  on  Thursday,  the  Com 
missioner  made  known  his  decision  to  the  slave-claimant's 
counsel ;  on  Friday,  at  nine  o'clock,  to  Messrs.  Dana  and 
Ellis,  and  the  world ! ! 

What  a  picture !  Put  aside  that  it  was  a  slave  case ; 
forget,  if  you  will,  for  a  moment,  that  he  was  committing 
an  act  which  the  Commonwealth  says  is  ipso  facto  infa 
mous,  and  declares  that  no  man  shall  do  it  and  hold  office. 
The  old  law  of  Scotland  declared  that  a  butcher  should 
not  sit  upon  a  jury ;  he  was  incapacitated  by  his  profession. 
The  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  by  the  statute  of 
1843,  says  that  any  Slave  Commissioner  is  unfit  to  sit 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING.  197 

upon  the  bench.  Mr.  Loring  cannot  see  it,  although  it 
was  written  and  signed,  re-enacted  and  signed  again,  — 
although  he  was  doing  an  act  which  the  butchers  of  our 
city,  to  their  honor  be  it  said,  would  not  sanction,  two 
days  afterwards.  He  puts  this  man  into  a  room,  bewil 
dered,  terrified,  unfriended,  —  so  unfit  for  trial,  that  stran 
gers  deem  it  their  duty  repeatedly  to  protest  against  the 
proceedings  of  the  court.  Having  gone  through  that 
mockery  of  half  an  hour's  trial,  he  takes  occasion  to  ex 
press  his  deliberate  opinion  of  what  the  result  is  to  be  to 
counsel.  Having  done  that,  he  makes  his  conduct  still 
more  flagrant  by  drawing  up  a  bill  of  sale  of  the  man  who 
was  still  on  trial  before  him.  There  was  but  one  man  in 
the  State  of  Massachusetts  who  could  not  have  drawn  that 
bill  of  sale,  as  I  before  said ;  yet  he  was  the  man  to  draw 
it !  After  that,  he  proceeds  to  collogue,  to  conspire,  with 
one  party,  and  tell  them  his  decision,  twenty  hours  before 
he  informs  the  other.  Gentlemen,  I  submit  to  you,  as  a 
citizen  of  Massachusetts,  that  this  is  conduct  unfitting  for 
the  bench ;  that  there  is,  not  to  speak  of  inhumanity,  an 
utter  unfitness  to  try  questions  of  any  kind,  an  utter  reck 
lessness  of  judicial  character  and  regard  for  propriety  in 
such  conduct,  which  might  cause  the  very  stones  in  the 
street  to  rise  and  plead  for  the  majesty  of  the  laws  against 
such  a  judge.  The  petitioners  say  to  you,  that  such  a 
man  is  not  fit  to  wear  the  ermine  of  the  Commonwealth 
fof  Massachusetts.  Do  they  say  too  much?  I  am  to  die 
in  this  city ;  many  of  the  petitioners  are  to  die  here.  Our 
wills  are  to  go  into  his  hands.  Our  children  and  widows 
are  to  go  before  him.  We  cannot  trust  him ;  and  we  ask 
you  to  remove  him,  under  that  provision  of  the  Constitu 
tion  which  gives  you  unlimited  power  to  remove  a  judge 
who  is  unfit  for  the  duties  of  his  office. 

It  is  not  necessary,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  I  detain  you 
long  on  the  charge  that  Mr.  Loring  "  wrested  the  law  t* 


198  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LOKING. 

the  support  of  injustice,  tortured  evidence  to  heJp  the 
strong  against  the  weak,  and  administered  a  merciless 
statute  in  a  merciless  manner."  You  have  in  your  hands 
the  able  arguments  of  Messrs.  Ellis  and  Dana,  as  well  as 
that  remarkable  "  Decision  which  Judge  Loring  might 
have  given,"  originally  published  in  the  Boston  Atlas. 
These  make  it  needless  for  me  to  enlarge  on  the  law 
points.  Allow  me,  however,  a  few  brief  remarks. 

1st.  To  use  my  own  statement  prepared  for  another 
occasion,  "  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  leaves  the  party  claim 
ant  his  choice  between  two  processes ;  one  under  its  sixth 
section  ;  the  other  under  the  tenth. 

"  The  sixth  section  obliges  the  claimant  to  prove  three 
points :  (1.)  that  the  person  claimed  owes  service ;  (2.) 
that  he  has  escaped ;  and,  (3.)  that  the  party  before  the 
court  is  the  identical  one  alleged  to  be  a  slave. 

"  The  tenth  section  makes  the  claimant's  certificate  con 
clusive  as  to  the  first  two  points,  and  only  leaves  the  iden 
tity  to  be  proved. 

"  In  this  case,  the  claimant,  by  offering  proof  of  service 
and  escape,  made  his  election  of  the  sixth  section. 

"Here  he  failed,  —  failed  to  prove  service,  failed  to 
prove  escape.  Then  the  Commissioner  allowed  him  to 
swing  round  and  take  refuge  in  the  tenth,  leaving  iden 
tity  only  to  be  proved ;  and  this  he  proved  by  the  pris 
oner's  confession,  made  in  terror,  if  at  all ;  wholly  denied 
by  him,  and  proved  only  by  the  testimony  of  a  witness 
of  whom  we  know  nothing,  but  that  he  was  contradicted 
by  several  witnesses  as  to  the  only  point  to  which  he 
Affirmed,  capable  of  being  tested." 

2d.  As  to  the  point  of  identity.  Colonel  Suttle  proved 
that  the  person  at  the  bar  was  his  Anthony  Burns  by  the 
testimony  of  one  witness.  Of  this  witness,  it  may  be  em 
phatically  said,  we  knew  nothing.  He  was  never  in  the 
State  before,  and  we  hope  he  never  will  be  again.  He 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING.  199 

swore  that  Burns  escaped  from  Richmond,  March  24, 
1854.  To  contradict  him,  six  witnesses  volunteered  their 
testimony.  They  were  not  sought  out ;  they  came  acci 
dentally  or  otherwise  into  court,  and  offered,  unsolicited, 
their  testimony,  that  they  had  seen  the  man  at  the  bar  in 
Boston  for  three  or  four  weeks  before  the  day  of  alleged 
escape.  These  were  witnesses  of  whose  daily  life  and  un- 
impeached  character  ample  evidence  existed.  Everybody 
knew  them.  Six  to  one  !  They  were  Boston  mechan 
ics  and  bookkeepers  ;  one  a  city  policeman,  one  an  officer 
in  the  regiment,  and  member  of  the  Common  Council. 
Surely,  it  was  evident,  either  that  the  record  was  wrong, 
that  the  Virginia  witness  was  wrong,  or  that  this  prisoner 
was  not  the  man  Colonel  Suttle  claimed  as  his  slave.*  Out 
of  either  door,  there  was  chance  for  the  judge  to  find  his 
way  to  release  Burns.  At  any  rate,  there  was  reasonable 
doubt,  and  the  person  claimed  was  therefore  entitled  to  his 
release.  But  no  ;  Mr.  Loring  lets  one  unknown  slave- 
hunter  outweigh  six  well-known  and  honest  men,  tramples 
on  the  rule  that  in  such  cases  all  doubts  are  to  be  held 
in  favor  of  the  prisoner,  and  surrenders  his  victim  to 
bondage. 

Observe,  Gentlemen,  in  this  connection,  the  exceeding 
importance  of  granting  time  to  prepare  for  trial,  the  omis 
sion  of  which,  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Loring,  I  have  com 
mented  on.  If  this  case  had  been  finished  on  Thursday, 
as  it  would  have  been  but  for  the  interference  of  others, 
these  witnesses  would  not  have  been  heard  of  till  after 
Burns  was  out  of  the  State.  But  after  the  two  efforts  of 
his  counsel  had  succeeded  in  getting  delay  till  Monday, 
the  facts  of  the  case  became  known  through  the  city,  and, 

*  After  the  surrender  of  Burns,  it  was  discovered  that  the  statements  of 
these  six  witnesses  were  exactly  correct.  Burns  came  to  Boston  early  in 
February,  and  Suttle's  witness  made  a  mistake  of  a  month  in  the  date  of 
Burns's  exit  from  Virginia. 


200  REMOVAL   OF   JUDGE   LORING. 

having  heard  them,  these  witnesses  volunteered  their  tes 
timony.  Now,  if  the  ascertaining  of  pertinent  facts  be  the 
purpose  of  a  trial,  which  it  surely  is  in  all  courts,  except 
those  of  slave  commissioners,  the  consideration  I  have 
stated  is  a  very  important  one.  Though  Mr.  Loring  chose 
to  disregard  this  evidence,  it  was  due  to  the  law  and  to 
the  satisfaction  of  the  community,  that,  even  in  his  court, 
it  should  be  heard. 

3d.  But  as  to  the  sole  point  to  be  proved,  under  the 
tenth  section,  identity,  the  evidence  Mr.  Loring  relies  on 
is  the  confession  of  the  poor  victim  when  first  arrested. 
No  confession  is  admissible  when  made  in  terror. 

This  confession  was  made  at  night ;  and  even  twelve 
hours  after,  Mr.  Loring  was  forced  himself  to  admit  that 
the  prisoner  was  so  stupefied  and  terrified,  he  was  in  no  fit 
state  to  be  tried.  Yet  he  admitted  his  confessions  made  in 
a  still  more  terrified  hour !  The  only  witness,  also,  to  this 
alleged  confession,  was  this  same  unknown  slave-hunter, 
unless  we  count  one  of  the  ruffians  who  guarded  Burns. 

But  if  the  confession  be  taken  at  all,  the  whole  must  be 
taken.  Now,  in  this  confession,  sworn  to  by  Colonel  Sut- 
tle's  own  witness,  Burns  said  he  did  not  run  away,  but  fell 
asleep  on  board  a  ship,  where  he  was  at  work  with  his 
master's  permission,  and  was  brought  away.  This  state 
ment  being  brought  in  by  Colonel  Suttle's  own  witness, 
must  be  taken  by  this  claimant  as  true.  He  cannot  be 
allowed  to  doubt  or  contradict  it.  If  it  be  true,  then 
Burns  was  not  a  fugitive  slave,  and  so  not  within  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  provisions.  Our  own  Supreme  Court 
has  decided  (see  7  Gushing,  298)  that  a  slave  on  board  a 
national  vessel  with  his  master,  by  express  permission  of 
the  Navy  Secretary,  who  had  been  landed  in  Boston  in 
consequence  of  Navy  orders,  against  the  wish  of  the  mas 
ter,  and  of  course  by  no  action  of  the  slave,  could  not  be 
reclaimed.  To  be  brought  from  a  Slave  State  is  no 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING.  201 

escape,  within  the  meaning  of  the  law.  If  taken  at  all, 
the  whole  confession  must  be  taken.  If  the  whole  be 
taken,  then  the  claimant  himself  has  proved  that  his 
alleged  slave  did  not  escape.  If  not  taken  in  the  whole, 
then  it  cannot  be  taken  at  all,  not  even  under  the  tenth 
section,  and  then  there  is  no  evidence  as  to  identity ;  and 
the  whole  case  falls  to  the  ground. 

Surely  somewhere  among  all  these  wide  gaping  chasms 
in  the  claimant's  case,  this  poor  judge,  who  pleads  he  was 
obliged  to  do  infamous  work  and  accept  the  case,  might 
have  found  chance  of  escape,  if  he  were  a  learned  and 
humane  man  ! 

Mr.  Loring  contends  that  he  was  obliged  to  issue  the 
warrant  in  consequence  of  the  oath  he  took  when  ap 
pointed  Judge  of  Probate,  to  support  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  He  says  :  — 

"  When  I  was  appointed  Judge  of  Probate,  I  was,  by  the  au 
thority  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts,  bound  by  an  official  oath 
to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States ;  this  is  to  be 
done  only  by  fulfilling  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  and  of 
those  laws  of  the  United  States  which  are  constitutionally  made 
to  carry  the  Constitution  into  effect,  And  on  the  authority  of 
the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  Massachusetts,  I  confidently  claim 
that,  in  my  action  under  the  United  States  Act  of  1850, 1  exactly 
complied  with  the  official  oath  imposed  on  me  by  the  authority 
of  the  people  of  Massachusetts." 

A  simple  illustration  will  show  the  absurdity  of  this 
claim.  If  the  "  official  oath  "  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  which  he  says  Massachusetts  required  him 
as  Judge  of  Probate  to  take,  really  binds  him  to  execute 
all  the  laws  of  the  Union,  in  every  capacity,  then  such 
execution  becomes  a  part  of  his  official  duty,  since  it  was 
as  a  Judge  of  Probate,  and  only  as  such,  that  he  took  the 
"  official  oath."  It  follows,  then,  that  if  Marshal  Freeman 
should  direct  Judge  Loring  to  aid  in  catching  a  slave,  and 


202  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LOKING. 

he  should  refuse,  the  House  of  Representatives  could  im 
peach  him  for  official  misconduct.  I  think  no  one  hut  a 
Slave  Commissioner  will  maintain  that  this  is  law. 

Mr.  Loring  contends  that  he  was  bound  to  issue  the 
warrant,  holding  as  he  did  the  office  of  Commissioner ! 
Who  obliged  him  to  hold  the  office  ?  Could  he  not  have 
resigned,  as  many  —  young  Kane  of  Philadelphia,  and 
others  —  did,  when  first  the  infamous  act  made  it  possible 
that  he  should  be  insulted  by  an  application  for  such  a 
warrant  ?  There  was  a  time  when  all  of  us  would  have 
deemed  such  an  application  an  insult  to  Edward  G.  Lo 
ring.  Could  he  not  have  resigned  when  the  application 
was  made,  as  Captain  Hayes  of  our  police  did,  when  called 
on  to  aid  in  doing  the  very  act  which  Mr.  Loring  had 
brought  like  a  plague  on  the  city  ?  Could  he  not  have 
declined  to  issue  the  warrant  or  take  part  in  the  case,  as 
B.  F.  Hallett  was  reported  to  have  done  in  the  case  of 
William  and  Ellen  Crafts  ? 

But  whether  he  could  or  not  matters  not  to  you,  Gen 
tlemen.  Massachusetts  has  a  right  to  say  what  sort  of 
men  she  will  have  on  her  bench.  She  does  not  complain 
if  vile  men  will  catch  slaves.  She  only  claims  that  they 
shall  not,  at  the  same  time,  be  officers  of  hers.  Mr.  Lo 
ring  had  his  choice,  to  resign  his  judgeship  or  his  commis- 
sionership.  He  chose  to  act  as  Commissioner,  and,  of 
course,  took  the  risk  of  losing  the  other  office  whenever 
the  State  should  rise  to  assert  her  laws.  Nobody  can 
complain  that  he  is  not  allowed  to  hold  a  Probate  Court 
one  hour  and  a  Slave  Court  the  next.  Certainly,  it  is  not 
too  much  to  claim  for  Massachusetts  the  poor  right  to  say, 
that  when  the  "  legalized  robber,"  "  the  felonious  slave- 
^trader,"  (these  are  Channing's  words,)  comes  here,  he 
shall  not  be  able  to  select  agents  for  his  merciless  work  from 
those  sitting  on  our  bench  and  clothed  in  our  ermine. 

One  single  line  of  this  remonstrance  goes  far  to  show 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING.  203 

the  hollowness  of  all  the  rest :  "  In  this  conviction,  the 
Commissioners,  refusing  all  pecuniary  compensation,  have 
performed  their  duties  to  the  Constitution  and  the  law." 
If  the  "  pieces  of  silver  "  are  clean,  and  have  no  spot  of 
blood,  why  do  all  our  Commissioners  refuse  to  touch  them  ? 
And  why,  when  accused  of  executing  this  merciless  stat 
ute,  (all  men  seem  to  think  it  an  accusation^)  does  each 
one  uniformly  plead  in  extenuation  or  atonement  that  he 
refused  the  fee  ?  Is  it  any  real  excuse  for  doing  an  in 
famous  act,  that  one  did  it  for  nothing  ?  There  is  some 
thing  strange  in  this.  Ah,  Gentlemen,  not  all  the  special 
pleading  in  the  world,  not  "all  the  perfumes  of  Arabia, 
can  sweeten  "  that  accursed  gold. 

There  is  one  paragraph  in  this  remonstrance  which  de 
serves  notice,  as  showing  either  great  ignorance  or  great 
heedlessness  in  one  who  claims  to  sit  on  a  judicial  bench. 
Mr.  Loring  says  :  — 

"  In  the  year  1851,  the  Act  of  Congress  of  1850  was  declared, 
by  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Judicial 
Court  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  to  be  a  constitu 
tional  law  of  the  United  States,  passed  by  Congress  in  execution 
of  the  fourth  article  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
as  such  the  supreme  law  of  Massachusetts  (7  Cush.  Rep.  285)  ; 
and  in  exposition  of  the  subject,  after  reference  to  the  nature  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  as  a  compromise  of  mutual 
rights,  creating  mutual  obligations  and  duties,  it  was  declared 
(page  319)  :  'In  this  spirit  and  with  these  views  steadily  in 
prospect,  it  seems  to  be  the  duty  of  all  judges  and  magistrates  to 
expound  and  apply  these  provisions  in  the  Constitution  and  laws 
of  the  United  States,  and  in  this  spirit  it  behooves  all  persons 
bound  to  obey  the  laws  of  the  United  States  to  consider  and  re 
gard  them/  And  this  authoritative  direction  as  to  the  duties  of 
the  magistrates  and  people  of  Massachusetts  was  given  in  direct 
reference  to  the  fourth  article  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  the  United  States  Act  of  1850,  and  the  laws  of  Massa 
chusetts,  as  they  then  were  and  have  ever  since  been." 


204  REMOVAL  OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

Observe  the  language:  "It  was  declared,"  by  the 
court,  of  course,  and  it  is  an  "  authoritative  direction  as  to 
the  duties  of  magistrates."  You  conclude,  Gentlemen, 
as  every  reader  would,  and  would  have  a  right  to  con 
clude,  that  this  sentence,  quoted  from  the  319th  page  of 
Gushing' s  Reports,  is  part  of  a  decision  of  our  Supreme 
Court.  Not  at  all,  Gentlemen ;  it  is  only  a  note  to  a  de 
cision,  written,  to  be  sure,  by  Judge  Shaw,  but  on  his 
private  responsibility,  and  no  more  an  "  authoritative  di 
rection  "  to  magistrates  and  people  than  any  casual  remark 
of  Judge  Shaw  to  his  next-door  neighbor  as  they  stand 
together  on  the  sidewalk.  In  his  decision  in  the  Burns 
case,  Mr.  Loring  refers  to  the  Sims  case,  above  cited,  (7 
Gushing,  285,)  "  as  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  judges 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts,"  and  then  quotes 
this  same  sentence  as  part  of  the  opinion,  terming  it  "  the 
wise  words  of  our  revered  Chief  Justice  IN  THAT  CASE." 
Could  this  important  mistake,  twice  made,  on  solemn  occa 
sions,  be  mere  inadvertence  ?  If  he  knew  no  better,  he 
seems  hardly  fit  for  a  judge.  If  any  of  his  friends  should 
claim  he  did  know  better,  then,  surely,  he  must  have  in 
tended  to  deceive,  and  that  does  not  much  increase  his 
fitness  for  the  bench. 

Mr.  Chairman,  there  is  one  view  of  the  Burns  case 
which  has  not,  I  believe,  been  suggested.  It  is  this. 
Massachusetts  declares  that  the  fugitive  slave  is  constitu 
tionally  entitled  to  a  jury  trial.  It  is  the  general  conviction 
of  the  North.  Mr.  Webster  had  once  prepared  an  amend 
ment  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  securing  jury  trial.  A 
Commissioner  of  humane  and  just  instincts  would  be 
careful,  therefore,  to  remember  that  the  present  act, 
on  the  contrary,  made  him  both  judge  and  jury.  Now 
does  any  man  in  the  Commonwealth  believe  that  a 
jury  would  have  ever  sent  Burns  into  slavery  with  six 
witnesses  against  one  as  to  his  identity,  and  his  confession 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LOR1XG.  205 

as  much  in  his  favor  as  against  him  ?  Mr.  Loring  knows, 
this  day,  that  he  sent  into  slavery  a  man  whom  no  jury 
that  could  be  impanelled  in  Massachusetts  would  have 
condemned.  I  might  add,  whom  no  judge  but  himself, 
now  on  our  bench,  would  have  condemned  on  the  same 
evidence. 

The  friends  of  Mr.  Loring,  in  the  streets,  tell  us  it  is 
hard  to  hold  him  accountable  for  this  decision  ;  that  all  the 
world  knows  he  did  not  make  it,  —  powerful  relatives  and 
friends  dictated  it  to  him.  Gentlemen,  the  apology  seems 
worse  even  than  our  accusation.  A  man  whose  own  heart 
does  not  lead  him  to  be  a  slave-catcher  allow  himself  to 
be  made  the  tool  of  others  for  such  business!  Besides, 
does  this  excuse  prove  him  so  very  fit,  after  all,  to  sit  on 
the  Probate  Bench  ?  What  if  he  should  allow  able  rela 
tives  to  dictate  his  decisions  there  also  ? 

Gentlemen,  I  have  not  enlarged,  as  I  might  have  done, 
on  the  general  principle  that,  without  alleging  special  mis 
conduct,  the  mere  fact  of  Mr.  Loring' s  consenting  to  act 
at  all  as  a  Slave  Commissioner  is  sufficient  cause  for  his 
removal  from  the  office  of  a  Massachusetts  judge.  To  con 
sent  actively  to  aid  in  hunting  slaves  here  and  now  shows 
a  hardness  of  heart,  a  merciless  spirit,  a  moral  blindness,  an 
utter  spiritual  death,  which  totally  unfit  a  man  for  the  judi 
cial  office.  No  such  man  ought  or  can  expect  to  preserve 
the  confidence  of  the  community,  which  is  essential  to 
his  usefulness  as  a  judge.  Neither  can  Mr.  Loring  claim 
that  he  had  not  full  warning  such  would  be  the  case.  To 
our  shame  we  must  confess,  that  the  State  has  submitted 
to  the  execution  Of  the  Slave  Act  within  her  limits.  But, 
thank  God !  we  are  justified  in  claiming  that  she  submitted 
in  sad,  reluctant,  sullen  silence ;  that  while  she  offered  no 
resistance  to  the  law,  as  such,  she  proclaimed,  in  the  face 
of  the  world,  her  loathing  and  detestation  of  a  slave-hunter. 
In  the  words  of  Channing :  — 


206  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

"  The  great  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  arrangement  now  pro« 
posed  is  the  article  of  the  Constitution  requiring  the  surrender 
and  return  of  fugitive  slaves.  A  State,  obeying  this,  seems  to 
me  to  contract  as  great  guilt  as  if  it  were  to  bring  slaves  from 
Africa.  No  man,  who  regards  slavery  as  among  the  greatest 
wrongs,  can  in  any  way  reduce  his  fellow-creatures  to  it.  The 
flying  slave  asserts  the  first  right  of  a  man,  and  should  meet  aid 

rather  than  obstruction No  man  among  us,  who  values  his 

character,  would  aid  the  slave-hunter.  The  slave-hunter  here 
would  be  looked  on  with  as  little  favor  as  the  felonious  slave- 
trader.  Those  among  us  who  dread  to  touch  slavery  in  its  own 
region,  lest  insurrection  and  tumults  should  follow  change,  still 
feel  that  the  fugitive  who  has  sought  shelter  so  far  can  breed  no 
tumult  in  the  land  which  he  has  left,  and  that,  of  consequence, 
no  motive  but  the  unhallowed  love  of  gain  can  prompt  to  his  pur 
suit;  and  when  they  think  of  slavery  as  perpetuated,  not  for 
public  order,  but  for  gain,  they  abhor  it,  and  would  not  lift  a 
finger  to  replace  the  flying  bondsman  beneath  the  yoke" 

The  Legislature,  the  press,  the  pulpit,  the  voice  of 
private  life,  every  breeze  that  swept  from  Berkshire  to 
Barnstable,  spoke  contempt  for  the  hound  who  joined  that 
merciless  pack.  Every  man  who  touched  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Act  was  shrunk  from  as  a  leper.  Every  one  who  de 
nounced  it  was  pressed  to  our  hearts.  Political  sins  were 
almost  forgotten,  if  a  man  would  but  echo  the  deep  relig 
ious  conviction  of  the  State  on  this  point.  When  Charles 
Sumner,  himself  a  Commissioner,  proclaimed  beforehand 
his  determination  not  to  execute  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act,' 
exclaiming,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  "  I  was  a  man  before  I  was  a 
Commissioner  I"  all  Massachusetts  rose  up  to  bless  him, 
and  say,  Amen !  The  other  Slave  Commissioner  who 
burdens  the  city  with  his  presence  cannot  be  said  to  have 
lost  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the  community,  seeing 
he  never  had  either.  But  slave-hunting  was  able  to  sink 
even  him  into  a  lower  depth  than  he  had  before  reached. 

The  hunting  of  slaves  is,  then,  a  sufficient  cause  for 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING.  207 

removal  from  a  Massachusetts  bench.  Indeed,  I  should 
blush  for  the  State  if  it  were  not  so.  I  am  willing  this 
case  should  stand  forever  as  a  precedent.  Let  it  be  con 
sidered  as  settled,  that  when  a  judge  violates  the  well- 
known,  mature,  religious  conviction  of  the  State  on  a  grave 
and  vital  question  of  practical  morality,  having  had  full 
warning,  such  violation  shall  be  held  sufficient  cause  for 
his  removal.  This  principle  will  do  no  shadow  of  harm  to 
the  independence  of  the  bench.  Mr.  Chairman,  as  I  have 
before  remarked,  the  bench  is  weakened  when  we  retain  a 
bad  judge,  not  when  we  remove  him. 

I  am  glad  that  the  facts  of  this  case  are  such  that  we 
can  remove  Mr.  Loring  without  violating  in  the  least  tittle 
the  proper  independence  of  the  judiciary  ;  that  Massachu 
setts  can  fix  the  seal  of  her  detestation  on  the  Slave  Act 
by  so  solemn  a  deed,  without  danger  to  her  civil  polity. 
But,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  frankly  confess  that,  if  the  case  had 
been  otherwise,  if  it  had  been  necessary  to  choose  between 
two  alternatives,  (while  I  value  as  highly  as  any  man  can 
an  independent  judge,)  better,  far  better,  in  my  opinion, 
to  have  for  judges  dependent  honest  men,  than  indepen 
dent  slave-catchers. 

Dr.  Channing,  sitting  in  his  study,  says  that  "  no  man 
among  us  who  values  his  character  would  aid  the  slave- 
hunter."  We  ask  you  to  remove  from  judicial  office  the 
man  who  has  done  it,  —  done  it  unnecessarily,  done  it  in  hot 
haste,  done  it  against  law.  We  ask  you  not  to  have  slave- 
hunters  on  the  bench  of  our  old  Commonwealth.  Read 
Channing's  last,  dying  words :  — 

"  There  is  something  worse  than  to  be  a  slave.  It  is  to  make 
other  men  slaves.  Better  be  trampled  in  the  dust  than  trample 
on  a  fellow-creature.  Much  as  I  shrink  from  the  evils  inflicted 
by  bondage  on  the  millions  who  bear  it,  I  would  sooner  endure 
them  than  inflict  them  on  a  brother.  Freemen  of  the  moun 
tains  !  as  far  as  you  have  power,  remove  from  yourselves,  from 


208  REMOVAL   OF   JUDGE   LORIXG. 

our  dear  and  venerable  mother,  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachu 
setts,  and  from  all  the  Free  States,  the  baseness  and  guilt  of 
ministering  to  slavery,  of  acting  as  the  slaveholder's  police,  of 

lending   him   arms-  and   strength   to   secure   his   victim 

Should  a  slave-hunter  ever  profane  these  mountainous  retreats  by 
seeking  here  a  flying  bondman,  regard  him  as  a  legalized  robber. 
Oppose  no  force  to  him  ;  you  need  not  do  it.  Your  contempt 
and  indignation  will  be  enough  to  disarm  the  *  man-stealer '  of 
the  unholy  power  conferred  on  him  by  unrighteous  laws." 

This  is  the  picture  of  a  slave-hunter,  which  a  dispas 
sionate  man  leaves  as  his  legacy  to  his  fellow-citizens. 
Gentlemen,  we  assert  that  such  a  man  is  not  fit  to  sit  upon 
the  bench.  We  have  a  right  to  claim  that  you  shall  give 
us  honorable,  just,  high-minded,  conscientious  judges,  — 
men  worthy  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the  community. 
You  cannot  have  such,  if  you  have  men  who  consent  to 
act  as  United  States  Slave  Commissioners.  You  never 
can  enact  a  United  States  Commissioner  into  respect. 
You  may  pile  your  statutes  as  high  as  Waclmsett,  they 
will  suffice  to  disgrace  the  State,  they  cannot  make  a 
Slave  Commissioner  a  respectable  man. 

We  have,  it  seems  to  us,  a  right  to  ask  of  Massachusetts 
this  act,  —  it  being  clearly  within  her  just  authority,  —  as 
a  necessary  and  righteous  expression  of  the  feeling  of  the 
State.  The  times  are  critical.  South  Carolina  records 
her  opinion  of  slavery  in  a  thousand  ways.  She  violates 
the  United  States  Constitution  to  do  it,  expelling  Mr. 
Hoar  from  her  borders,  and  barring  him  out  with  fine  and 
imprisonment.  Young  Wisconsin  makes  the  first  page  of 
her  State  history  glorious  by  throwing  down  her  gauntlet 
against  this  slave-hunting  Union,  in  defence  of  justice  and 
humanity.  Some  of  us  had  hoped  that  our  beloved  Com 
monwealth  would  have  placed  that  crown  of  oak  on  her 
own  brow.  Her  youngest  daughter  has  earned  it  first. 
God  speed  her  on  her  bright  pathway  to  success  and  im- 


REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING.  209 

mortal  honor  !  Shall  Massachusetts  alone  be  mute,  when 
the  world  gathers  to  this  great  protest  against  a  giant  sin, 
to  this  holy  crusade  of  humanity  ? 

Say  not,  we  claim  something  extreme  and  fanatical. 
We  say  only,  what  the  State  enacted  in  1843  and  reiter 
ated  in  1850,  that  to  be  a  Massachusetts  magistrate  and  a 
slave-hunter  are  incompatible  offices.  Surely,  public  opin 
ion  has  not  gone  back  since  1850.  Surely,  the  Nebraska 
outrage  has  not  reconciled  you  to  the  Slave  Power.  We 
dare  be  as  much  opposed  to  slavery  and  slave-hunting 
now  as  we  were  before  that  insult.  Tell  the  nation  that 
Massachusetts  throws  no  sanction  around  the  Slave  Law 
by  allowing  her  officers  to  join  in  executing  it.  She  marks 
her  sense  of  its  merciless  nature  by  refusing  her  broad 
seal  to  any  one  who  upholds  it. 

Judge  Loring  says,  "  I  only  obeyed  the  United  States 
law  in  returning  the  fugitive."  Let  Massachusetts  say  to 
him,  "  Do  it !  do  it  freely !  do  it  as  often  as  you  please ! 
Return  a  fugitive  slave  every  day !  But,  when  you  do, 
remember  you  shall  skulk  through  the  streets  like  a  leper 
from  whose  side  every  man  shrinks.  Remember,  you 
shall  hold  no  commission  of  mine.  No,  the  humblest  work 
that  the  lowliest  official  performs,  since  it  is  honest,  is  too 
holy  to  be  polluted  by  you.  We  do  not  deny  your  right. 
It  is,  unfortunately,  your  right,  as  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States,  to  take  your  part  in  slave  hunts ;  but  the  Common 
wealth  has  also,  we  thank  God,  still  the  right  to  say  that 
her  judges  shall  be  decent  men,  at  least.  Make  your 
choice  !  You  wish  to  be  United  States  Commissioner  ?  — 
be  it;  but  no  longer  be  officer  of  mine !  "  What !  shall 
our  judges  be  men  whose  names  it  makes  one  involuntarily 
shudder  to  meet  in  our  public  journals  ?  —  whose  hand 
many  an  honest  man  would  blush  to  be  seen  to  touch  in 
the  streets  ? 

Indeed,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  do  not  exaggerate.    Grant  that 

14 


210  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE   LORING. 

Burns  was  Colonel  Suttle's  slave,  and  what  are  the  facts  ? 
A  brave,  noble  man,  born,  unhappily,  in  a  Slave  State,  has 
shown  his  fitness  for  freedom  better  than  most  of  us  have 
done.  At  great  risk  and  by  great  effort  obtained  he  this 
freedom ;  but  we  were  only  free  born.  He  hides  himself 
in  Boston.  By  hard  work  he  earns  his  daily  bread. 
With  patient  assiduity,  he  sits  at  the  feet  of  humble  teach 
ers,  in  school  and  pulpit,  and  tries  to  become  really  a  man. 
The  heavens  smile  over  him.  He  feels  that  all  good  men 
must  wish  him  success  in  his  blameless  efforts  to  make 
himself  more  worthy  to  stand  at  their  side.  Weeks  roll 
on,  and  the  heart  which  stood  still  with  terror  at  every 
lifting  of  the  door-latch  begins  to  grow  more  calm.  He 
has  finished  his  day's  work  ;  and,  under  the  free  stars, 
wearied,  but  full  of  joyful  hope  that  words  could  never 
express,  he  seeks  his  home,  —  happy,  however  humble,  as 
it  is  his,  and  it  is  free.  In  a  moment,  the  cup  is  dashed 
from  his  lips.  He  is  in  fetters,  and  a  slave.  The  dear 
hope  of  knowledge,  manhood,  and  worthy  Christian  life 
seems  gone.  To  read  is  a  crime  now,  marriage  a  mock 
ery,  and  virtue  a  miracle.  Who  shall  describe  the  horrible 
despair  of  that  moment?  How  the  world  must  have 
seemed  to  shut  down  over  .him  as  a  living  tomb  !  What 
hand  dealt  that  terrible  blow?  This  poor  man,  against 
mountain  obstacles,  is  struggling  to  climb  up  to  be  more 
worthy  of  his  immortality.  What  hand  is  it,  that,  in  this 
Christian  land,  starts  from  the  cloud  and  thrusts  him  back? 
It  is  the  hand  of  one  whom  your  schools  have  nurtured 
with  their  best  culture,  sitting  at  ease,  surrounded  with 
wealth ;  one  whom  your  commission  appoints  to  protect 
the  fatherless,  and  mete  out  justice  between  man  and  man. 
Men !  Christians !  is  there  one  of  you  who  would,  for 
worlds,  take  upon  his  conscience  the  guilt  of  thus  crushing 
A  hapless,  struggling  soul?  Is  the  man  who  could,  in 
obedience  to  any  human  law,  be  guilty  of  such  an.  act,  fit 
to  be  judge  over  Christian  people? 


REMOVAL  OF  JUDGE  LORING.  211 

Gentlemen,  the  petitioners  have  no  feeling  of  revenge 
toward  Mr.  Edward  G.  Loring.  Let  the  general  gov 
ernment  reward  him  with  thousands,  if  it  will.  To  us  he 
is  only  an  object  of  pity.  There  was  an  hour  when  one 
man  trembled  before  him,  —  when  one  hapless  victim, 
with  more  than  life  at  stake,  trembled  before  this  man's 
want  of  humanity  and  ignorance  of  law.  That  hour  has 
passed  away.  To-day  he  is  but  a  weed  on  the  great 
ocean  of  humanity.  To  us  he  is  nothing ;  but  we,  with 
you,  are  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts ;  and  for 
the  honor  of  the  State,  for  the  sake  of  justice,  in  the  name 
of  humanity,  we  claim  his  removal.  We  have  a  right  to 
a  judiciary  worthy  of  the  respect  of  the  community.  We 
cannot  respect  him.  Do  not  give  us  a  man  whose  judicial 
character  is  made  up  of  party  bias,  personal  predilection, 
bad  law,  and  a  reckless  disregard  of  human  rights,  and 
whose  heart  was  too  hard  to  melt  before  the  mute  elo 
quence  of  a  hapless  and  terrified  man,  —  do  not  commit  to 
such  a  one  the  widows  and  orphans  of  the  Commonwealth ! 
Do  not  place  such  a  man  on  a  bench  which  only  able  and 
humane  and  Christian  men  have  occupied  before  !  Do 
not  let  him  escape  the  deserved  indignation  of  the  com 
munity,  by  the  technical  construction  of  a  statute  !  The 
Constitution  has  left  you,  as  the  representatives  of  the 
original  sovereignty  of  the  people,  the  power  to  remove  a 
judge,  when  you  think  he  has  lost  the  confidence  and 
respect  of  his  constituents.  Exercise  it!  Say  to  the 
United  States,  "  The  Constitution  allows  the  return  of 
fugitive  slaves.  Find  your  agents  where  you  will ;  you 
shall  not  find  them  on  the  Supreme  or  any  inferior  Bench 
of  Massachusetts.  You  shall  never  gather  round  that  in 
famous  procedure  any  respectability  derived  from  the  r^.ag- 
istracy  of  the  Commonwealth.  If  it  is  to  be  done,  let  it 
be  done  by  men  whom  it  does  not  harm  the  honor  or  the 
interest  of  Massachusetts  to  have  dishonored  and  made 
infamous  1 " 


212  REMOVAL   OF  JUDGE  LORING. 

Mr.  Chairman,  give  free  channel  to  the  natural  instincts 
of  the  Commonwealth,  and  let  us  —  let  us  be  at  liberty  to 
despise  the  slave-hunter,  without  feeling  that  our  chil 
dren's  hopes  and  lives  are  prejudiced  thereby !  When 
you  have  done  it,  —  when  you  have  pronounced  on  this 
hasty,  reckless,  inhuman  court  its  proper  judgment,  the 
verdict  of  official  reprobation,  —  you  will  secure  another 
thing.  The  next  Slave  Commissioner  who  opens  his  court 
will  remember  that  he  opens  it  in  Massachusetts,  where  a 
man  is  not  to  be  robbed  of  his  rights  as  a  human  being 
merely  because  he  is  black.  You  will  throw  around  the 
unfortunate  victim  of  a  cruel  law,  which  you  say  you 
cannot  annul,  all  the  protection  that  Massachusetts  inci 
dentally  can.  And,  doing  this,  you  will  do  something 
to  prevent  seeing  another  such  sad  week  as  that  of  last 
May  or  June,  in  the  capital  of  the  Common  wealth.  Al 
though  you  cannot  blot  out  this  wicked  clause  in  the 
Constitution,  you  will  render  it  impossible  that  any  but 
reckless,  unprincipled,  and  shameless  men  shall  aid  in  its 
enforcement.  Such  men  cannot  long  uphold  a  law  in  this 
Commonwealth. 

The  petitioners  ask  both  these  things ;  claiming  espe 
cially  to  have  proved  that  you  can  do  this  work,  and  that, 
if  you  love  justice  or  mercy,  you  ought  to  do  it. 


THE  BOSTON  MOB.* 


MR.  PRESIDENT  :  I  feel  that  I  have  very  little 
right  on  this  platform  to-day.  I  stand  here  only 
to  express  my  gratitude  to  those  who  truly  and  properly 
occupy  it,  for  what  we  all  owe  them  —  the  women  and 
the  men  —  who  stood  by  our  honor,  and  so  nobly  did  our 
duties,  when  we  forgot  it  and  them  twenty  years  ago. 

At  this  hour,  twenty  years  ago,  I  was  below  ii:  the 
street ;  —  I  thank  God  I  am  inside  the  house  now !  I 
was  not  in  the  street  as  one  of  the  mob,  but  as  a  spectator, 
I  had  come  down  from  my  office  in  Court  Street  to  see 
what  the  excitement  was.  I  did  not  understand  antislav- 
ery  then;  that  is,  I  did  not  understand  the  country  in 
which  I  lived.  We  have  all  learned  much  since  then  ; 
learned  what  antislavery  means,  —  learned  what  a  repub 
lican  government  really  is,  —  learned  the  power  of  the 
press  and  of  money,  which  I,  at  least,  did  not  know  then. 
I  remember  saying  to  the  gentleman  who  stood  next  to 
me  in  the  street :  "  Why  does  not  the  Mayor  call  out  the 
regiment  ?  "  (I  belonged  to  it  then.)  "  We  would  cheer 
fully  take  arms  in  such  a  case  as  this.  It  is  a  very  shame 
ful  business.  Why  does  he  stand  there  arguing  ?  Why 
does  he  not  call  for  the  guns  ?  "  I  did  not  then  know 
that  the  men  who  should  have  borne  them  were  th« 

*  Speech  before  the  Antislavery  Meeting  held  in  Stacy  Hall,  Boston,  on 
the  Twentieth  Anniversary  of  the  Mob  of  October  21, 1835. 


214  THE   BOSTON   MOB. 

mob  ;  that  all  there  was  of  government  in  Boston  was  in 
the  street ;  that  the  people,  our  final  reliance  for  the  exe 
cution  of  the  laws,  were  there,  in  "  broadcloth  and  broad 
daylight,"  in  the  street.  Mayor  Lyman  knew  it ;  and 
the  only  honorable  and  honest  course  open  to  him  was,  to 
have  said,  "  If  I  cannot  be  a  magistrate,  I  will  not  pretend 
to  be  one." 

*  I  do  not  know  whether  to  attribute  the  Mayor's  dis 
graceful  conduct  to  his  confused  notion  of  his  official  du 
ties,  or  to  a  cowardly  unwillingness  to  perform  what  he 
knew  well  enough  to  be  his  duty.  A  superficial  observer 
of  the  press  and  pulpit  of  that  day  would  be  inclined  to 
consider  it  the  result  of  ignorance,  and  lay  the  blame  at 
the  door  of  our  republican  form  of  government,  which 
thrusts  up  into  important  stations  dainty  gentlemen  like 
Lyman,  physicians  never  allowed  to  doctor  any  body  but 
the  body  politic,  or  cunning  tradesmen  who  have  wriggled 
their  slimy  way  to  wealth,  —  men  who  in  a  trial  hour  not 
only  know  nothing  of  their  own  duties,  but  do  not  even 
know  where  to  go  for  advice.  And  for  the  preachers,  I 
am  inclined  to  think  this  stolid  ignorance  of  civil  rights 
and  duties  may  be  pleaded  as  a  disgraceful  excuse,  leaving 
them  guilty  only  of  meddling  in  matters  far  above  their 
comprehension.  But  one  who  looks  deeper  into  the  tem 
per  of  that  day  will  see  plainly  enough  that  the  Mayoi 
and  the  editors,  with  their  companions  "  in  broadcloth," 
were  only  blind  to  what  they  did  not  wish  to  see,  and 
knew  the  right  and  wrong  of  the  case  well  enough,  only, 
like  all  half-educated  people,  they  were  but  poorly  able  to 
comprehend  the  vast  importance  of  the  wrong  they  were 
doing.  The  mobs  which  followed,  directed  against  others 
than  Abolitionists,  the  ripe  fruit  of  the  seed  here  planted, 
opened  their  eyes  somewhat. 

Mr.  Garrison  has  given  us  specimens  enough  of  the 
press  of  that  day.     There  was  the  Daily  Advertiser,  of 


THE   BOSTON  MOB.  215 

course  on  the  wrong  side,  —  respectable  when  its  oppo 
nents  are  strong  and  numerous,  and  quite  ready  to  be 
scurrilous  when  scurrility  is  safe  and  will  pay,  —  behind 
whose  editorials  a  keen  ear  can  always  catch  the  clink  of  the 
dollar,  —  entitled  to  be  called  the  Rip  Van  Winkle  of  the 
press,  should  it  ever,  like  Rip,  wake  up ;  the  Advertiser 
condescended,  strangely  enough,  to  say,  that  it  was  not 
surprised  (!)  that  papers  abroad  considered  the  meeting 
of  mobocrats  in  the  street  below  a  riot  (!)  ;  but  the  wiser 
Advertiser  itself  regarded  it  "  not  so  much  as  a  riot  as  the 
prevention  of  a  riot "  /  It  "  considered  the  whole  transaction 
as  the  triumph  of  law  over  lawless  violence,  and  the  love  of 
order  over  riot  and  confusion"!!  Dear,  dreamy  Van 
Winkle!  and  he  goes  on  to  "rejoice"  at  the  exceeding 
"  moderation  "  of  the  populace,  that  they  did  not  murder 
Mr.  Garrison  on  the  spot !  And  this  is  the  journal  which 
Boston  literature  regards  as  its  organ,  and  which  Boston 
wealth  befools  itself  by  styling  "  respectable  "  ! 

Next  came  the  scurrilous  Gazette,  which,  it  is  said,  re 
pented  of  its  course  when  it  found  that  Northern  subscrib 
ers  fell  off  and  Southerners  continued  to  despise  it  as  be 
fore  ;  and  which,  outliving  public  forbearance  and  becoming 
bankrupt,  earned  thus  the  right  to  be  melted  into  the  Daily 
Advertiser. 

With  them  in  sad  alliance  marched  the  Courier,  — 
always  strong  and  frank,  whichever  side  it  took,  and  even 
of  whose  great  merit  and  bravery  between  that  time  and 
this,  it  is  sufficient  praise  to  say,  that  it  was  enough  to 
outweigh  its  great  wrong  in  1835,  and  its  vile  servility 
now. 

With  rare  daring,  the  Christian  Register,  the  organ  of 
the  Unitarians,  snatched  the  palm  of  infamy.  In  a  mo 
ment  of  forgetful  frankness,  remembering,  probably,  the 
coward  course  of  its  own  sect,  it  counselled  hypocrisy; 
suiting  manner  to  matter,  it  hints  to  the  Abolitionists,  that 


216  THE   BOSTON  MOB. 

they  should  imitate  the  example,  as,  with  laughable  igno 
rance,  it  avers,  of  the  early  Christians  of  Trajan's  day, 
and  meet  in  secret,  if  the  "  vanity "  of  the  ladies  would 
allow  !  The  coward  priest  forgot,  if  he  ever  knew,  that 
the  early  Christians  met  in  secret  beneath  the  pavements 
of  Rome,  only  to  pray  for  the  martyrs  whose  crosses  lined 
the  highways,  whose  daring  defied  Paganism  at  its  own 
altars,  and  whose  humanity  stopped  the  bloody  games  of 
Rome  in  the  upper  air;  that  they  met  beneath  the  ground, 
not  so  much  to  hide  themselves,  as  to  get  strength  for 
attacks  on  wicked  laws  and  false  altars. 

Infamy,  however,  at  that  day,  was  not  a  monopoly  of 
one  sect.  Hubbard  Winslow,  a  Pharisee  of  the  Pharisees, 
strictly  Orthodox,  a  bigot  in  good  and  regular  standing, 
shortly  after  this  preached  a  sermon  to  illustrate  and  de 
fend  the  doctrine,  that  no  man,  under  a  republican  gov 
ernment,  has  a  right  to  promulgate  any  opinion  but  such 
as  "  a  majority  of  the  brotherhood  would  allow  and  pro 
tect";  and  he  is  said  to  have  boasted  that  Judge  Story 
thanked  him  for  such  a  discourse  ! 

The  Mayor  played  a  most  shuffling  and  dishonorable 
part.  For  some  time  previous,  he  had  held  private  con 
ferences  with  leading  Abolitionists,  urging  them  to  dis 
continue  their  meetings,  professing,  all  the  while,  entire 
friendship,  and  the  most  earnest  determination  to  protect 
them  in  their  rights  at  any  cost.  The  Abolitionists  treated 
him,  in  return,  with  the  utmost  confidence.  They  yielded 
to  his  wishes,  so  far  as  to  consent  to  do  nothing  that  would 
increase  the  public  excitement,  with  this  exception,  that 
they  insisted  on  holding  meetings  often  enough  to  assert 
their  right  to  meet.  Yet,  while  they  were  thus  honorably 
avoiding  everything  which  would  needlessly  excite  the 
public  mind,  going  to  the  utmost  verge  of  submission  and 
silence  that  duty  permitted,  —  while  the  Abolitionists,  with 
rare  moderation,  were  showing  this  magnanimous  forbear- 


THE   BOSTON  MOB.  217 

ance  and  regard  to  the  weakness  of  public  authority  and 
the  reckless  excitement  of  the  public,  —  the  Mayor  himself, 
in  utter  violation  of  official  decorum  and  personal  honor, 
accepted  the  chair  of  the  public  meeting  assembled  in 
Faneuil  Hall,  and  presided  over  that  assembly, — an  as 
sembly  which  many  intended  should  rouse  a  mob  against 
the  Abolitionists,  and  which  none  but  the  weak  or  wilfully 
blind  could  avoid  seeing  must  lead  to  that  result.  In  his 
opening  speech  to  that  factious  meeting,  the  Mayor,  under 
oath  at  that  moment  to  protect  every  citizen  in  his  rights, 
and  doubly  bound  just  then  by  private  assurances  to  these 
very  Abolitionists,  forgot  all  his  duty,  all  his  pledges,  so 
far  as  to  publicly  warn  them  of  the  danger  of  their  meeting, 
—  a  warning  or  threat,  the  memory  of  which  might  well 
make  him  tremblingly  anxious  to  save  Garrison's  life,  since 
of  any  blood  shed  that  day,  every  law,  divine  and  human, 
would  have  held  the  Mayor  guilty. 

Such  was  the  temper  of  those  times.  The  ignorant  were 
not  aware,  and  the  wise  were  too  corrupt  to  confess,  that 
the  most  precious  of  human  rights,  free  thought,  was  at 
stake.  These  women  knew  it,  felt  the  momentous  char 
acter  of  the  issue,  and  consented  to  stand  in  the  gap. 
Those  were  trial  hours.  I  never  think  of  them  without 
my  shame  for  my  native  city  being  swallowed  up  in  grati 
tude  to  those  who  stood  so  bravely  for  the  right.  Let  us 
not  consent  to  be  ashamed  of  the  Boston  of  1835.  Those 
howling  wolves  in  the  streets  were  not  Boston.  These 
brave  men  and  women  were  Boston.  We  will  remember 
no  other. 

I  never  open  the  statute-book  of  Massachusetts  with 
out  thanking  Ellis  Gray  Loring  and  Samuel  J.  May, 
Charles  Follen  and  Samuel  E.  Sewall,  and  those  around 
me  who  stood  with  them,  for  preventing  Edward  Everett 
$rom  blackening  it  with  a  law  making  free  speech  an  in 
dictable  offence.  And  we  owe  it  to  fifty  or  sixty  women, 


218  THE  BOSTON   MOB. 

and  a  dozen  or  two  of  men,  that  free  speech  was  saved,  in 
1835,  in  the  city  of  Boston.  Indeed,  we  owe  it  mainly  to 
one  man.  If  there  is  one  here  who  loves  Boston,  who 
loves  her  honor,  who  rejoices  to  know  that,  however  fine 
the  thread,  there  is  a  thread  which  bridges  over  that  dark 
and  troubled  wave,  and  connects  us  by  a  living  nerve  with 
the  freemen  of  the  Revolution,  —  that  Boston,  though  be 
trayed  by  her  magistrates,  her  wealth,  her  press,  and  her 
pulpits,  never  utterly  bowed  her  neck,  let  him  remember 
that  we  owe  it  to  you,  Sir,  [Mr.  Francis  Jackson,]  who  of 
fered  to  the  women  not  allowed  to  meet  here,  even  though 
the  Mayor  was  in  this  hall,  the  use  of  your  house  ;  and 
one  sentence  of  your  letter  deserves  to  be  read  whenever 
Boston  men  are  met  together  to  celebrate  the  preservation 
of  the  right  of  free  speech  in  the  city  of  Adams  and  Otis. 
History,  which  always  loves  courage,  will  write  it  on  a  page 
whiter  than  marble  and  more  incorruptible  than  gold. 
You  said,  Sir,  in  answer  to  a  letter  of  thanks  for  the  use 
of  your  house  :  — 

"  If  a  large  majority  of  this  community  choose  to  turn  a  deaf 
ear  to  the  wrongs  which  are  inflicted  upon  their  countrymen  in 
other  portions  of  the  land,  —  if  they  are  content  to  turn  away 
from  the  sight  of  oppression,  and  '  pass  by  on  the  other  side/  — 
so  it  must  be. 

"  But  when  they  undertake  in  any  way  to  impair  or  annul  my 
right  to  speak,  write,  and  publish  upon  any  subject,  and  more 
especially  upon  enormities  which  are  the  common  concern  of 
every  lover  of  his  country  and  his  kind,  —  so  it  must  not  be,  — 
so  it  shall  not  be,  if  I  for  one  can  prevent  it.  Upon  this  great 
right  let  us  hold  on  at  all  hazards.  And  should  we,  in  its  exer 
cise,  be  driven  from  public  halls  to  private  dwellings,  one  house 
at  least  shall  be  consecrated  to  its  preservation.  And  if,  in  de 
fence  of  this  sacred  privilege,  which  man  did  not  give  me,  and 
shall  not  (if  I  can  help  it)  take  from  me,  this  roof  and  these  walls 
shall  be  levelled  to  the  earth,  —  let  them  fall,  if  they  must 
They  cannot  crumble  in  a  better  cause.  They  will  appear  of 


THE  BOSTON  MOB.  219 

very  little  value  to  me,  after  their  owner  shall  have  been  whipped 
into  silence." 

This  was  only  thirty  days  after  the  iiiob.  I  need  not 
read  the  remainder  of  that  letter,  wiiich  is  in  the  same 
strain. 

We  owe  it  to  one  man  that  a  public  meeting  was  held, 
within  a  month,  by  these  same  women,  in  the  city  of  Bos 
ton.  But  to  their  honor  be  if  rememembered,  also,  —  a 
fact  which  Mr.  Garrison  omitted  to  state,  —  that  when 
Mayor  Lyman  urged  them  to  go  home,  they  left  this  hall 
in  public  procession  and  went  "  home  "  to  the  house  of 
Mrs.  M.  W.  Chapman,  in  West  Street,  to  organize  and 
finish  their  meeting  that  very  afternoon.  To  Mrs.  Chap 
man's  pen  we  owe  the  most  living  picture  of  that  whole 
scene,  and  her  able,  graphic,  and  eloquent  reports  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  Female  Antislavery  Society,  and  spe 
cially  of  this  day,  have  hung  up  to  everlasting  contempt 
the  "  men  of  property  and  standing,"  —  the  "  respectable  " 
men  of  Boston. 

Let  us  open,  for  a  moment,  the  doors  of  the  hall  which 
stood  here,  and  listen  to  the  Mayor  receiving  his  lesson  in 
civil  duty  from  the  noble  women  of  this  society. 

MR.  LYMAN.  —  Go  home,  ladies,  go  home. 

PRESIDENT.  —  What  renders  it  necessary  we  should  go 
home  ? 

MR.  LYMAN.  —  I  am  the  Mayor  of  the  city,  and  I  cannot 
now  explain  ;  but  will  call  upon  you  this  evening. 

PRESIDENT.  —  If  the  ladies  will  be  seated,  we  will  take  the 
sense  of  the  meeting. 

MR.  LYMAN.  —  Don't  stop,  ladies,  go  home. 

PRESIDENT.  —  Will  the  ladies  listen  to  a  letter  addressed  to 
the  Society,  by  Francis  Jackson,  Esq.  ? 

MR.  LYMAN.  —  Ladies,  do  you  wish  to  see  a  scene  of  blood 
shed  and  confusion  ?  If  you  do  not,  go  home. 

ONE  OF  THE  LADIES.  —  Mr.  Lyman,  your  personal  friends 


220  THE   BOSTON  MOB. 

are  the  instigators  of  this  mob ;  have  you  ever  used  your  per 
sonal  influence  with  them  ? 

MR.  LYMAN.  —  I  know  no  personal  friends ;  I  am  merely 
an  official.  Indeed,  ladies,  you  must  retire.  It  is  dangerous  to 
remain. 

LADY.  —  If  this  is  the  last  bulwark  of  freedom,  we  may  as 
well  die  here  as  anywhere. 

There  is  nothing  braver  than  that  in  the  history  of  the 
Long  Parliament,  or  of  the  Roman  Senate. 

At  that  Faneuil  Hall  meeting,  one  of  "  the  family  "  was 
present,  —  one  of  that  family  which  was  never  absent  when 
a  deed  of  infamy  was  to  be  committed  against  the  slave,  —  a 
family  made  up  mostly  of  upstart  attorneys,  who  fancy  them 
selves  statesmen,  because  able  to  draw  a  writ  or  pick  holes 
in  an  indictment.  Mr.  Thomas  B.  Curtis  read  the  resolu 
tions  ;  and  then  followed  three  speeches,  by  Harrison  Gray 
Otis,  Richard  Fletcher,  and  Peleg  Sprague,  unmatched  for 
adroit,  ingenious,  suggestive  argument  and  exhortation  to 
put  down,  legally  or  violently,  —  each  hearer  could  choose 
for  himself,  —  all  public  meetings  on  the  subject  of  slavery 
in  the  city  of  Boston.  Everything  influential  in  the  city 
was  arrayed  against  this  society  of  a  few  women.  I  could 
not  but  reflect,  as  I  sat  here,  how  immortal  principle  is. 
Rev.  Henry  Ware,  Jr.  read  the  notice  of  this  society's 
meeting  from  Dr.  Channing's  pulpit,  and  almost  every 
press  in  the  city  woke  barking  at  him  next  morning  for 
what  was  called  his  "impudence."  He  is  gone  to  his 
honored  grave  ;  many  of  those  who  met  in  this  hall  in 
pursuance  of  that  notice  are  gone  likewise.  They  died, 
as  Whittier  so  well  says, 

"  their  brave  hearts  breaking  slow, 
But,  self-forgetful  to  the  last, 
In  words  of  cheer  and  bugle  glow, 

Their  breath  upon  the  darkness  passed." 

In  those  days,  as  we  gathered  round  their  graves,  and 


THE   BOSTON  MOB.  221 

resolved  that,  the  "  narrower  the  circle  became,  we  would 
draw  the  closer  together,"  we  envied  the  dead  their  rest. 
Men  ceased  to  slander  them  in  that  sanctuary ;  and  as  we 
looked  forward  to  the  desolate  vista  of  calamity  and  toil 
before  us,  and  thought  of  the  temptations  which  beset  us 
on  either  side  from  worldly  prosperity  which  a  slight  sacri 
fice  of  principle  might  secure,  or  social  ease  so  close  at 
hand  by  only  a  little  turning  aside,  we  almost  envied  the 
dead  the  quiet  sleep  to  which  we  left  them,  the  harvest 
reaped,  and  the  seal  set  beyond  the  power  of  change. 
And  of  those  who  assaulted  them,  many  are  gone.  The 
Mayor  so  recreant  to  his  duty,  or  so  lacking  in  knowledge 
of  his  office,  is  gone ;  the  Judge  before  whom  Mr.  Gar 
rison  was  arraigned,  at  the  jail,  the  next  day  after  the 
mob,  is  gone ;  the  Sheriff  who  rode  with  him  to  the  jail  is 
gone ;  the  city  journals  have  changed  hands,  being  more 
than  once  openly  bought  and  sold.  The  editor  of  the 
Atlas*  whose  zeal  in  the  cause  of  mob  violence  earned  it 
the  honor  of  giving  its  name  to  the  day,  — "  the  Atlas 
mob"  many  called  it,  —  is  gone;  many  of  the  prominent 
actors  in  that  scene,  twenty  years  ago,  have  passed  away ; 
the  most  eloquent  of  those  whose  voices  cried  "  Havoc  !  "  at 
Faneuil  Hall  has  gone,  —  Mr.  Otis  has  his  wish,  that  the 
grave  might  close  over  him  before  it  closed  over  the 
Union,  which  God  speed  in  his  good  time; — but  the 
same  principle  fills  these  same  halls,  as  fresh  and  vital  to 
day,  as  self-fixed  and  resolute  to  struggle  against  pulpit 
and  press,  against  wealth  and  majorities,  against  denuncia 
tion  and  unpopularity,  and  certain  in  the  end  to  set  its 
triumphant  foot  alike  on  man  and  everything  that  man  has 
made. 

Here  stands  to-day  the  man  whom  Boston  wealth  and 
Boston  respectability  went  home,  twenty  years  ago  this 
night,  and  gloried  in  having  crushed.  The  loudest  boast 
ers  are  gone.  He  stands  to-day  among  us,  these  very 


222  THE  BOSTON  MOB. 

walls,  these  ideas  which  breathe  and  burn  around  us,  say 
ing  for  him,  "I  still  live."  If,  twenty  or  twice  twenty 
years  hence,  he  too  shall  have  passed  away,  may  it  not  be 
till  his  glad  ear  has  caught  the  jubilee  of  the  emancipated 
millions  whom  his  life  has  been  given  to  save ! 

This  very  Female  Antislavery  Society  which  was  met 
here  twenty  years  ago  did  other  good  service  but  a  few 
months  after,  in  getting  the  Court  of  Massachusetts  to 
recognize  that  great  principle  of  freedom,  that  a  slave, 
brought  into  a  Northern  State,  is  free.  It  was  in  the  well- 
known  Med  case.  We  owe  that  to  the  Boston  Female 
Antislavery  Society.  To-day,  Judge  Kane,  and  the 
Supreme  Court,  which  alone  can  control  him,  are  endeav 
oring  to  annihilate  that  principle  which  twenty  years  ago 
was  established.  How  far  and  how  soon  they  may  be 
successful,  God  only  knows. 

Truly,  as  Mr.  Garrison  has  said,  the  intellectual  and 
moral  growth  of  antislavery  has  been  great  within  twenty 
years ;  but  who  shall  deny  that,  in  the  same  twenty  years, 
the  political,  the  organic,  the  civil  growth  of  slavery  has 
been  more  than  equal  ?  We  stand  here  to-day  with  a 
city  redeemed  —  how  far?  Just  so  far  as  this  meeting 
commemorates,  —  the  right  of  free  speech  is  secured. 
Thank  God !  in  twenty  years,  we  have  proved  that  an 
antislavery  meeting  is  not  only  possible,  but  respectable, 
in  Massachusetts,  —  that  is  all  we  have  proved.  Lord 
Erskine  said  a  newspaper  was  stronger  than  government. 
We  have  got  many  newspapers  on  our  side.  Ideas  will, 
in  the  end,  beat  down  anything ;  —  we  have  got  free 
course  for  ideas. 

But  let  us  not  cheer  ourselves  too  hastily,  for  the  gov 
ernment,  the  wealth,  the  public  opinion,  of  this  very  city  in 
which  we  meet,  remain  to-day  almost  as  firmly  anchored 
as  ever  on  the  side  of  slavery.  Vanes  turn  only  when  the 
wind  shifts,  so  the  Daily  Advertiser  has  not  changed  a  whit, 


THE  BOSTON  MOB.  223 

—  nut  a  whit.  The  same  paper  that  spoke  doubtful  words 
before  October  21st,  hoped  the  meeting  would  be  stopped, 
and  afterwards  could  not  quite  decide  whether  there  was  a 
mob  or  not,  but  was  glad  the  ladies  were  not  allowed  to 
hold  their  meeting,  —  that  same  paper  would  doze  through 
the  same  shameless  part  to-day.  That  paper,  which  repre 
sented  then  so  well  the  mobocrats  in  broadcloth,  has  passed 
from  a  father  wearied  in  trying  to  hold  Massachusetts 
back,  to  his  son,  —  whose  accession,  to  reverse  James  the 
First's  motto,  "no  day  followed,"  —and  it  is  published 
to-day  with  the  same  spirit,  represents  the  same  class, 
actuated  exactly  with  the  same  purpose.  If  there  is 
strength  outside  the  city,  in  the  masses,  enough  to  rebuke 
that  class  and  that  press  and  that  purpose,  and  give  the 
State  of  Massachusetts  more  emphatically  to  some  kind  of 
antislavery,  it  is  still  a  struggle.  I  would  not  rejoice, 
therefore,  too  much.  We  must  discriminate.  "  To  break 
your  leg  twice  over  the  same  stone  is  'your  own  fault," 
says  the  Spanish  proverb. 

I  came  here  to-day  to  thank  God  that  Boston  never 
wanted  a  person  to  claim  his  inalienable  right  to  utter  his 
thoughts  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  nor  a  spot  upon  which 
he  could  do  it;  —  that  is  all  my  rejoicing  to-day.  And 
in  that  corner-stone  of  individual  daring,  of  fidelity  to  con 
science,  I  recognize  the  possibility  of  the  emancipation  of 
three  millions  of  slaves.  But  that  possibility  is  to  be  made 
actual  by  labors  as  earnest  and  unceasing,  by  a  self-devo 
tion  as  entire,  as  that  which  has  marked  the  twenty  years 
we  have  just  passed. 

I  find  that  these  people,  who  have  made  this  day 
famous,  were  accused  in  their  own  time  of  harsh  language 
and  over-boldness,  and  great  disparagement  of  dignities. 
These  were  the  three  charges  brought  against  the  Female 
Antislavery  Society  in  1835.  The  women  forgot  their 
homes,  it  was  said,  in  endeavoring  to  make  the  men  do 


224  THE   BOSTON  MOB. 

their  duty.  It  was  a  noble  lesson  which  the  sisters  and 
mothers  of  that  time  set  the  women  of  the  present  day,  — 
I  hope  they  will  follow  it. 

There  was  another  charge  brought  against  them,  —  it 
was,  that   they  had   no    reverence   for  dignitaries.     The 
friend  who  sits  here  on  my  right  (Mrs.  Southwick)  dared 
to  rebuke  a  slaveholder  with  a  loud  voice,  in  a  room  just 
before,  if  not  then,  consecrated  by  the  presence  of  Chief 
Justice  Shaw,  and  the  press  was  astonished  at  her  bold 
ness.     I  hope,  though  she  has  left  the  city,  she  has  left 
xfepresentatives    behind   her    who    will    dare    rebuke    any 
(    slave-hunter,  or  any  servant  of  the  slave-power,  with  the 
\  same  boldness,  frankness,  and  defiance  of  authorities,  and 
contempt  of  parchment. 

Then  there  was  another  charge  brought  against  their 
meetings,  that  they  indulged  in  exceedingly  bold  language 
about  pulpits  and  laws  and  wicked  magistrates.  That  is 
a  sin  which  I  hope  will  not  die  out.  God  grant  we  may 
inherit  that  also. 

I  should  like  to  know  very  much  how  many  there  are 
in  this  hall  to-day  who  were  out  in  the  street,  as  actual 
mobocrats,  twenty  years  ago.  I  know  there  are  some 
here  who  signed  the  various  petitions  to  the  City  Govern 
ment  to  prevent  the  meeting  from  being  held  ;  but  it  would 
be  an  interesting  fact  to  know  how  many  are  here  to-day, 
actually  enlisted  under  the  antislavery  banner,  who  tore 
that  sign  to  pieces.  I  wish  we  had  those  relics  ;  the  piece 
of  that  door  which  was  long  preserved,  the  door  so  coolly 
locked  by  Charles  Burleigh,  —  it  was  a  touching  relic. 
We  ought  to  have  a  portion  of  that  sign  which  the  Mayor 
threw  down  as  a  tub  to  the  whale,  hoping  to  save  some 
semblance  of  his  authority,  —  hoping  the  multitude  would 
be  satisfied  with  the  sign,  and  spare  the  women  in  this 
hall,  —  forgetting  that  a  mob  is  controlled  only  by  its  fears, 
not  by  pity  or  good  manners. 


THE   BOSTON  MOB.  .  225 

But,  Mr.  President,  it  is  a  sad  story  to  think  of.  Anti- 
slavery  is  a  sad  history  to  read,  sad  to  look  back  upon. 
What  a  miserable  refuse  public  opinion  has  been  for  the 
past  twenty  years !  —  what  a  wretched  wreck  of  all  that 
republican  education  ought  to  have  secured !  Take  up 
that  file  of  papers  which  Mr.  Garrison  showed  yon,  and 
think,  Republicanism,  a  Protestant  pulpit,  free  schools,  the 
model  government,  had  existed  in  our  city  for  sixty  years, 
and  this  was  the  result !  A  picture,  the  very  copy  of  that 
which  Sir  Robert  Peel  held  up  in  the  British  Parliament, 
within  a  month  after  the  mob,  as  proof  that  republicanism 
could  never  succeed.  It  is  a  sad  picture  to  look  back 
upon.  The  only  light  which  redeems  it  is  the  heroism 
that  consecrated  this  hall,  and  one  house  in  Hollis  Street, 
places  which  Boston  will  yet  make  pilgrimages  to  honor. 

The  only  thing  that  Americans  (for  let  us  be  Ameri 
cans  to-day,  not  simply  Abolitionists),  —  the  only  thing 
for  which  Americans  can  rejoice,  this  day,  is,  that  everything 
was  not  rotten.  The  whole  head  was  not  sick,  nor  the 
whole  heart  faint.  There  were  ten  men,  even  in  Sodom  ! 
And  when  the  Mayor  forgot  his  duty,  when  the  pulpit 
prostituted  itself,  and  when  the  press  became  a  pack  of 
hounds,  the  women  of  Boston,  and  a  score  or  two  of  men, 
remembered  Hancock  and  Adams,  and  did  their  duty. 
And  if  there  are  young  people  who  hear  me  to-day,  let  us 
hope  that  when  this  special  cause  of  antislavery  effort  is 
past  and  gone,  when  another  generation  shall  have  come 
upon  the  stage,  and  new  topics  of  dispute  have  arisen, 
there  will  be  no  more  such  scenes.  How  shall  we  ever 
learn  toleration  for  what  we  do  not  believe  ?  The  last 
lesson  a  man  ever  learns  is,  that  liberty  of  thought  and 
speech  is  the  right  for  all  mankind;  that  the  man  who 
denies  every  article  of  our  creed  is  to  be  allowed  to  preach 
just  as  often  and  just  as  loud  as  we  ourselves.  We  have 
learned  this,  —  been  taught  it  by  persecution  on  the  ques- 

15 


226  THE   BOSTON   MOB. 

tion  of  slavery.  No  matter  whose  the  lips  that  would 
speak,  they  must  be  free  and  ungagged.  Let  us  always 
remember  that  he  does  not  really  believe  his  own  opinions, 
who  dares  not  give  free  scope  to  his  opponent.  Persecution 
is  really  want  of  faith  in  our  creed.  Let  us  see  to  it,  my 
friends,  Abolitionists,  that  we  learn  the  lesson  the  whole 
circle  round.  Let  us  believe  that  the  whole  of  truth  can 
r^vr  do  harm  to  the  whole  of  virtue.  Trust  it.  And 
i^uember,  that,  in  order  to  get  the  whole  of  truth,  you 
must  allow  every  man,  right  or  wrong,  freely  to  utter  his 
conscience,  and  protect  him  in  so  doing. 

The  same  question  was  wrought  out  here  twenty  years 
ago,  as  was  wrought  in  the  protest  of  fifty  or  a  hundred 
Abolitionists,  when  an  infidel  (Abner  Kneeland)  was  sent 
to  Boston  jail  for  preaching  his  sentiments.  I  hope  that 
we  shall  all  go  out  of  this  hall,  remembering  the  highest 
lesson  of  this  day  and  place,  that  every  man's  conscience 
is  sacred.  No  matter  how  good  our  motives  are  in  try 
ing  to  gag  him !  Mayor  Lyman  had  some  good  motives 
that  day,  had  he  only  known  what  his  office  meant,  and 
stayed  at  home,  if  he  felt  himself  not  able  to  fill  it.  It  is 
not  motives.  Entire,  unshackled  freedom  for  every  man's 
lips,  no  matter  what  his  doctrine  ;  —  the  safety  of  free 
discussion,  no  matter  how  wide  its  range  ;  —  no  check  on 
the  peaceful  assemblage  of  thoughtful  men  !  Let  us  con 
secrate  our  labors  for  twenty  years  to  come  in  doing  better 
than  those  who  went  before  us,  and  widening  the  circle  of 
their  principle  into  the  full  growth  of  its  actual  and  proper 
significance. 

Let  me  thank  the  women  who  came  here  twenty  years 
ago,  some  of  whom  are  met  here  to-day,  for  the  good  they 
have  done  me.  I  thank  them  for  all  they  have  taught  me. 
I  had  read  Greek  and  Roman  and  English  history  ;  I  had 
by  heart  the  classic  eulogies  of  brave  old  men  and  martyrs; 
I  dreamed,  in  my  folly,  that  I  heard  the  same  tone  in  my 


THE   BOSTON  MOB.  227 

youth  from  the  cuckoo  lips  of  Edward  Everett ;  —  these 
women  taught  me  my  mistake.  They  taught  me  that  down 
in  those  hearts  which  loved  a  principle  for  itself,  asked  no 
man's  leave  to  think  or  speak,  true  to  their  convictions,  no 
matter  at  what  hazard,  flowed  the  real  blood  of  '76,  of  1640, 
of  the  hemlock-drinker  of  Athens,  and  of  the  martyr-saints 
of  Jerusalem.  I  thank  them  for  it !  My  eyes  were  sealed, 
so  that,  although  I  knew  the  Adamses  and  Otises  of  1776, 
and  the  Mary  Dyers  and  Ann  Hutchinsons  of  older  times, 
I  could  not  recognize  the  Adamses  and  Otises,  the  Dyers 
and  Hutchinsons,  whom  I  met  in  the  streets  of  '35.  These 
women  opened  my  eyes,  and  I  thank  them  and  you  [turn 
ing  to  Mrs.  Southwick  and  Miss  Henrietta  Sargent,  who 
sat  upon  the  platform]  for  that  anointing.  May  our  next 
twenty  years  prove  us  all  apt  scholars  of  such  brave  in 
struction  I 


THE   PILGRIMS.* 


MR.  PRESIDENT:  History  tells  us  that  the  Pil 
grims  at  this  season  of  the  year  1622  were  very 
hungry,  almost  starving  ;  but  certainly  their  descendants 
must  be  far  more  insatiable  than  they  then  were,  if,  after 
all  the  noble  things  they  have  heard  to-day,  they  can  ask 
for  more.  It  seems  to  me  we  are  in  the  condition  of  that 
man  whom  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  describes  in  one  of  his 
lectures.  You  remember  he  says  the  lyceum-lecturers 
held  a  meeting,  and  found,  as  a  matter  of  universal  expe 
rience,  that  at  a  certain  period  in  every  lecture  a  man 
went  out,  and  each  one  assigned  a  different  reason  for  it. 
One  thought  it  was  business,  another  the  heat,  and  a  third 
fancied  it  was  some  offensive  sentiment  uttered  by  the 
speaker.  But  Holmes,  being  a  physician,  performed  an 
autopsy,  and  found  the  man's  brain  was  full.  [Loud 
laughter  and  applause.]  Now,  Sir,  I  certainly  think  I 
may  claim  that  reason  for  sitting  down.  After  that  elo 
quent  and  profound  oration,  and  all  we  have  listened  to 
since,  surely  our  brains  must  be  full. 

Why,  who  can  do  anything  but  repeat  what  we  have 
heard  ?  Do  you  not  remember,  Sir,  when  we  wrere  little 
boys,  and  followed  the  martial  music,  our  steps  keeping 

*  Speech  at  the  dinner  of  the  Pilgrim  Society,  in  Plymouth,  December 
21,  1855,  in  response  to  the  following  toast :  — 

"  The  Pilgrim  Fathers,  —  Their  fidelity,  amid  hardships  and  perils,  to  truth 
and  duty,  has  secured  to  their  descendants  prosperity  and  peace." 


THE  PILGRIMS.  229 

time,  street  after  street,  till  we  came  to  some  broad  way 
that  our  fears  or  our  mothers  forbade  us  to  enter ;  and 
when  the  music  turned  away,  our  tiny  feet  kept  time  long 
afterwards  ?  Can  we  get  away  from  the  spell  which  took 
possession  of  us  in  yonder  church  ?  I  can  only  think  in 
that  channel.  Who  can  get  his  mind  away  from  the  deep 
resounding  march  with  which  the  speaker  carried  us  from 
century  to  century,  and  held  up  the  torch,  and  pointed 
out  the  significance  of  each  age  ?  All  we  can  do  is  to 
utter  some  little  reflection,  —  something  suggested  by  that 
train  of  thought. 

How  true  it  is  that  the  Puritans  originated  no  new 
truth !  How  true  it  is,  also,  Mr.  President,  that  it  is  not 
truth  which  agitates  the  world !  Plato  in  the  groves  of 
the  Academy  sounded  on  and  on  to  the  utmost  depth  of 
philosophy,  but  Athens  was  quiet.  Calling  around  him 
the  choicest  minds  of  Greece,  he  pointed  out  the  worth- 
lessness  of  their  altars  and  the  sham  of  public  life,  but 
Athens  was  quiet,  — it  was  all  speculation.  When  Socra 
tes  walked  the  streets  of  Athens,  and,  questioning  every 
day  life,  struck  the  altar  till  the  faith  of  the  passer-by 
faltered,  it  came  close  to  action,  and  immediately  they 
gave  him  hemlock,  for  the  city  was  turned  upside  down. 
I  might  find  a  better  illustration  in  the  streets  of  Jerusa 
lem.  What  the  Puritans  gave  the  world  was  not  thought, 
but  ACTION.  Europe  had  ideas,  but  she  was  letting  '.Z 
dare  not  wait  upon  I  would?  like  the  cat  in  the  adage. 
The  Puritans,  with  native  pluck,  launched  out  into  the 
deep  sea.  Men,  who  called  themselves  thinkers,  had  been 
creeping  along  the  Mediterranean,  from  headland  to  head 
land,  in  their  timidity ;  the  Pilgrims  launched  boldly  out 
into  the  Atlantic,  and  trusted  God.  [Loud  applause.] 
That  is  the  claim  they  have  upon  posterity.  It  was 
ACTION  that  made  them  what  they  were. 

No,  they  did  not  originate  anything,  but  they  planted ; 


230  THE   PILGRIMS. 

and  the  answer  to  all  criticism  upon  them  is  to  be  —  THE 
OAK.  [Cheers.]  The  Edinburgh  Reviewer  takes  up  that 
acorn,  the  good  ship  Mayflower,  and  says,  "  I  do  not  see 
stalwart  branches,  I  do  not  see  a  broad  tree  here."  Mr. 
President,  we  are  to  shoAv  it  to  him.  The  glory  of  the 
fathers  is  the  children.  Mr.  Winthrop  says  the  pens  of 
the  Puritans  are  their  best  defence.  No,  the  Winthrops 
of  to-day  are  to  be  the  best  defence  of  the  Winthrops 
of  1630 ;  they  are  to  write  that  defence  in  the  broad,  .legi 
ble  steps  of  a  life  whose  polar  star  is  Duty,  whose  goal 
is  Liberty,  and  whose  staff  is  Justice.  [Enthusiastic  ap 
plause.]  The  glory  of  men  is  often,  not  what  they  actually 
produce,  so  much  as  what  they  enable  others  to  do.  My 
Lord  Bacon,  as  he  takes  his  proud  march  down  the  centu 
ries,  may  Jay  one  hand  on  the  telegraph  and  the  other  on 
the  steamboat,  and  say,  "  These  are  mine,  for  I  taught 
you  to  invent."  And  the  Puritan,  wherever  he  finds  a 
free  altar,  free  lips,  ay,  and  a  free  family,  may  say, 
u  These  are  mine  !  "  No  matter  for  the  stain  of  bigotry 
which  rests  upon  his  memory,  since  he  taught  us  these. 

I  think,  Mr.  President,  that  the  error  in  judging  of  the 
Puritans  has  been  that  which  the  oration  of  to-day  sets 
right.  We  are  to  regard  them  in  posse,  not  in  esse,  —  in 
the  possibilities  which  were  wrapped  up  in  that  day,  1620, 
not  in  what  poor  human  bodies  actually  produced  at  that 
time.  Men  look  back  upon  the  Carvers  and  Bradfords 
of  1620,  and  seem  to  think,  if  they  existed  in  1855,  they 
would  be  clad  in  the  same  garments,  and  walking  in  the 
same  identical  manner  and  round  that  they  did  in  1620. 
It  is  a  mistake.  The  Pilgrims  of  1620  would  be,  in  1855, 
not  in  Plymouth,  but  in  Kansas.  [Loud  cheers.]  Solo 
mon's  Temple,  they  tell  us,  had  the  best  system  of  light 
ning-rods  ever  invented,  —  he  anticipated  Franklin.  Do 
you  suppose,  if  Solomon  lived  now,  he  would  stop  at  light 
ning-conductors  ?  No,  he  would  have  telegraphs  without 


THE   PILGRIMS.  231 

wires,  able  to  send  messages  both  ways  at  the  same  time, 
and  where  only  he  who  sent  and  he  who  received  should 
know  what  the  messages  were. 

Do  you  suppose  that,  if  Elder  Brewster  could  come  up 
from  his  grave  to-day,  he  would  be  contented  with  the 
Congregational  Church  and  the  five  points  of  Calvin  ? 
No,  Sir;  he  would  add  to  his  creed  the  Maine  Liquor 
Law,  the  Underground  Railroad,  and  the  thousand  Sharpe's 
Rifles,  addressed  "  Kansas,'1  and  labelled  "  Books."  [En 
thusiastic  and  long-continued  applause.]  My  idea  is,  if  he 
took  his  staff  in  his  hand  and  went  off  to  exchange  pulpits, 
you  might  hear  of  him  at  the  Music  Hall  of  Boston  [where 
Rev.  THEODORE  PARKER  preaches]  and  the  Plymouth 
Church  at  Brooklyn  [Rev.  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER'S]. 
[Renewed  applaoise.] 

We  should  bear  in  mind  development  when  we  criticise 
the  Pilgrims,  —  where  they  would  be  to-day.  Indeed,  to 
be  as  good  as  our  fathers,  we  must  be  better.  Imitation  is 
not  discipleship.  When  some  one  sent  a  cracked  plate  to 
China  to  have  a  set  made,  every  piece  in  the  new  set  had 
a  crack  in  it.  The  copies  of  1620  and  1787  you  com 
monly  see  have  the  crack,  and  very  large,  too.  Thee  and 
thou,  a  stationary  hat,  bad  grammar  and  worse  manners, 
with  an  ugly  coat,  are  not  George  Fox  in  1855.  You  will 
recognize  him  in  any  one  who  rises  from  the  lap  of  artificial 
life,  flings  away  its  softness,  and  startles  you  with  the  sight 
of  a  MAN.  Neither  do  I  acknowledge,  Sir,  the  right  of 
Plymouth  to  the  whole  rock.  No,  the  rock  underlies  all 
America;  it  only  crops  out  here.  [Cheers.]  It  has  cropped 
out  a  great  many  times  in  our  history.  You  may  recognize 
it  always.  Old  Putnam  stood  upon  it  at  Bunker  Hill,  when 
he  said  to  the  Yankee  boys,  "  Don't  fire  till  you  see  the 
whites  of  their  eyes."  Ingraham  had  it  for  ballast  when 
he  put  his  little  sloop  between  two  Austrian  frigates,  and 
threatened  to  blow  them  out  of  the  water,  if  they  did  not 


232  THE   PILGRIMS. 

respect  the  broad  eagle  of  the  United  States,  in  the  case 
of  Koszta.  Jefferson  had  it  for  a  writing-desk  when  he 

O 

drafted  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  "  Statute 
of  Religious  Liberty"  for  Virginia.  Lovejoy  rested  his 
musket  upon  it  when  they  would  not  let  him  print  at  Al 
ton,  and  he  said,  "  Death  or  free  speech  !  "  I  recognized 
the  clink  of  it  to-day,  when  the  apostle  of  the  "  Higher 
.Law"  came  to  lay  his  garland  of  everlasting  —  none  9 
better  right  than  he  —  upon -the  monument  of  the  Pil 
grims.  [Enthusiastic  cheering.]  He  says  he  is  not  a 
descendant  of  the  Pilgrims.  That  is  a  mistake.  There  is 
a  pedigree  of  the  body  and  a  pedigree  of  the  mind.  [Ap 
plause.]  He  knows  so  much  about  the  Mayflower,  that, 
as  they  say  in  the  West,  I  know  he  was  "  t/iar."  [Laugh 
ter  and  applause.]  Ay,  Sir,  the  rock  cropped  out  again. 
Garrison  had  it  for  an  imposing-stone  when  he  looked  in 
the  faces  of  seventeen  millions  of  angry  men  and  printed 
his  sublime  pledge,  "  I  will  not  retreat  a  single  inch,  and 
I  will  be  heard."  [Great  cheering.] 

Sir,  you  say  you  are  going  to  raise  a  monument  to  the 
Pilgrims,  I  know  where  I  would  place  it,  if  I  had  a 
vote.  I  should  place  one  corner-stone  on  the  rock,  and 
the  other  on  that  level  spot  where  fifty  of  the  one  hun 
dred  were  buried  before  the  winter  was  over.  In  that 
touching,  eloquent,  terrific  picture  of  what  the  Pilgrims 
passed  through,  rather  than  submit  to  compromise,  which 
the  orator  sketched  for  us  to-day,  he  omitted  to  mention 
that  one  half  of  their  number  went  down  into  the  grave  ; 
but  the  remainder  closed  up  shoulder  to  shoulder,  as  firm, 
unflinching,  hopeful  as  ever.  Yes,  death  rather  than  the 
compromise  of  Elizabeth.  [Loud  applause.]  I  would 
write  on  their  monument  two  mottoes  :  one,  "  The  Right 
is  more  than  our  country !  "  and  over  the  graves  of  the 
fifty,  "  Death,  rather  than  Compromise  !  "  Mr.  Presi 
dent,  I  detest  that  word.  It  is  so  dangerous,  I  would  not 


THE   PILGRIMS.  233 

have  it  even  in  matters  of  expediency.  As  the  Irishman 
said  in  Jefferson's  day,  when  the  "  true-blue  "  Democrats 
took  him  from  the  emigrant  ship,  naturalized  him  at  once, 
then  hurried  to  the  ballot-box,  urging  him  to  vote  the 
true  Democratic,  government  ticket,  "  The  government !  I 
never  knew  a  government  which  was  not  the  devil.  Give 
me  the  opposition  !  "  [Laughter.]  The  very  word  is 
misleading,  —  out  with  it !  I  would  never  have  a  com 
promise  for  anything. 

My  friend,  Governor  Boutwell,  says  the  Puritans  had 
no  taste  in  architecture.  I  remember  the  first  vote  passed 
after  they  landed  ;  it  was,  that  each  man  build  his  own 
house.  [Cheers.]  I  am  for  having  each  man  build  his 
own  mental  house  now,  without  having  too  much  uni 
formity  in  the  architecture,  and,  at  any  rate,  keeping  clear 
of  compromises  and  smothering  phrases,  and  all  shams  and 
delusions. 

What  did  the  Pilgrims  do  ?  Why,  Sir,  it  was  a  great 
question  at  that  day  which  course  to  take.  Cromwell  and 
Hampden  stood  on  one  side,  Carver  and  Bradford  on  the 
other.  Which  would  best  reform  the  English  government, 
staying  at  home  or  going  away  ?  History  answers  which 
effected  the  most.  Which  has  struck  the  heaviest  blows 
at  the  English  aristocracy,  the  efforts  of  those  who  stood 
nearest,  or  the  sight  and  example  of  America,  as  she 
loomed  up  in  gigantic  proportions  ?  Mr.  President,  they 
say  that  Michael  Angelo  once  entered  a  palace  at  Rome 
where  Raphael  was  ornamenting  the  ceiling,  and  as  An 
gelo  walked  round,  he  saw  that  all  the  figures  were  too 
small  for  the  room.  Stopping  a  moment,  he  sketched  on 
one  side  an  immense  head  proportioned  to  the  chamber ; 
and  when  his  friends  asked  him  why,  his  reply  was, 
"  I  criticise  by  creation,  not  by  finding  fault."  Carver 
and  Bradford  did  so.  They  came  across  the  water, 
created  a  great  model  state,  and  bade  England  take 


234  THE  PILGRIMS. 

warning.  The  Edinburgh  Reviewer  may  be  seen  running 
up  and  down  the  sides  of  the  Pilgrims,  and  taking  their 
measure,  —  where  does  he  get  his  yardstick  ?  He  gets  it 
from  the  very  institutions  they  made  for  him.  [Applause.] 
He  would  never  have  known  how  to  criticise,  if  their 
creations  had  not  taught  him. 

Mr.  President,  I  have  already  detained  you  much 
longer  than  I  would.  Surely  to-day  the  Puritans  have 
received  their  fit  interpreter.  We  know  them.  Their 
great  principles  we  are  to  carry  with  us  ;  that  one  idea, 
persistency,  —  that  was  their  polar  star,  and  it  is  the  key 
to  all  their  success.  They  never  lost  sight  of  it.  They 
sometimes  talked  for  Buncombe  ;  they  did  it  when  they 
professed  allegiance  to  Elizabeth.  Our  fathers  did  it  when 
they  professed  allegiance  to  George  III.,  —  it  was  only  for 
Buncombe  !  [Laughter.]  But,  concealed  under  the  vel 
vet  phrase,  there  was  the  stern  Puritan  muscle,  which  held 
on  to  individual  right. 

The  Puritans  believed  that  institutions  were  made  for 
man.  Europe  established  a  civilization,  which,  like  that 
of  Greece,  made  the  state  everything,  the  man  nothing. 
The  man  was  made  for  the  institutions ;  the  man  was 
made  for  the  clothes.  The  Puritans  said,  "  No,  let  us  go 
out  and  make  clothes  for  the  man  ;  let  us  make  institutions 
for  men  !  "  That  is  the  radical  principle,  it  seems  to  me, 
which  runs  through  all  their  history.  You  could  not 
beguile  them  with  the  voice  of  the  charmer,  "  charm  he 
never  so  wisely";  but  down  through  all  the  weary  years 
of  colonial  history  to  the  period  of  the  Revolution,  the 
Puritan  pulse  beat  in  unquailing,  never-faltering  allegiance 
to  this  principle  of  the  sacredness  of  man.  Let  us  hold  on 
to  it ;  it  is  to  be  our  salvation. 

Mr.  President,  the  toast  to  which  you  called  upon  me 
to  respond  says  our  fathers  have  secured  prosperity  and 
peace.  Yes,  "  secured  "  it.  It  is  not  here  ;  we  have  not 


THE  PILGRIMS.  235 

jet  got  it,  but  we  shall  have  it.  It  is  all  "  secured,"  for 
they  planted  so  wisely,  it  will  come.  They  planted  their 
oak  or  pine  tree  in  the  broad  lines  of  New  England,  and 
gave  it  room  to  grow.  Their  great  care  was,  that  it  should 
grow,  no  matter  at  what  cost.  Goethe  says,  that,  if  you 
plant  an  oak  in  a  flower-vase,  either  the  oak  must  wither 
or  the  vase  crack  :  some  men  go  for  saving  the  vase.  Too 
many  now-a-days  have  that  anxiety  :  the  Puritans  would 
have  let  it  crack.  So  say  I.  If  there  is  anything  that 
cannot  bear  free  thought,  let  it  crack.  There  is  a  class 
among  us  so  conservative,  that  they  are  afraid  the  roof 
will  come  down  if  you  sweep  off  the  cobwebs.  As  Doug 
lass  Jerrold  says,  "  They  can  never  fully  relish  the  new 
moon,  out  of  respect  for  that  venerable  institution,  the  old 
one."  [Great  merriment  and  applause.] 

Why,  Sir,  the  first  constitution  ever  made  was  framed 
in  the  Mayflower.  It  was  a  very  good  constitution, 
parent  of  all  that  have  been  made  since,  —  a  goodly 
family,  some  bad  and  some  good.  The  parent  was  laid 
aside  on  the  shelf  the  moment  the  progress  of  things  re 
quired  it.  I  hope  none  of  the  children  have  grown  so 
strong  that  they  can  prevent  the  same  event  befalling 
themselves  when  necessity  requires.  Hold  on  to  that  idea 
with  true  New  England  persistency,  —  the  sacredness  of 
individual  man,  —  and  everything  else  will  evolve  from  it. 
The  Phillipses,  Mr.  President,  did  not  come  from  Ply 
mouth  ;  they  made  their  longest  stay  at  Andover.  Let  me 
tell  you  an  Andover  story.  One  day,  a  man  went  into  a 
store  there,  and  began  telling  about  a  fire.  "  There  had 
never  been  such  a  fire,"  he  said,  "  in  the  county  of  Essex. 
A  man  going  by  Deacon  PettingiU's  barn  saw  an  owl 
on  the  ridge-pole.  He  fired  at  the  owl,  and  the  wadding 
some  how  or  other,  getting  into  the  shingles,  set  the  hay 
on  fire,  and  it  was  all  destroyed,  —  ten  tons  of  hay,  six 
head  of  cattle,  the  finest  horse  in  the  country,"  &c.  The 


236  THE  PILGRIMS. 

Deacon  was  nearly  crazed  by  it.  The  men  in  the  store 
began  exclaiming  and  commenting  upon  it.  "  What  a 
loss  !  "  says  one.  "  Why,  the  Deacon  will  wellnigh  break 
down  under  it,"  says  another.  And  so  they  went  on, 
speculating  one  after  another,  and  the  conversation  drifted 
on  in  all  sorts  of  conjectures.  At  last,  a  quiet  man,  who 
sat  spitting  in  the  fire,  looked  up,  and  asked,  "  Did  he 
hit  the  owl  ?  "  [Tumultuous  applause.]  That  man  was 
made  for  the  sturdy  reformer,  of  one  idea,  whom  Mr. 
Seward  described. 

No  matter  what  the  name  of  the  thing  be  ;  no  matter 
what  the  sounding  phrase  is,  what  tub  be  thrown  to  the 
whale,  always  ask  the  politician  and  the  divine,  "  Did  he 
hit  that  owl  ?  "  Is  liberty  safe  ?  Is  man  sacred  ?  They 
say,  Sir,  I  am  a  fanatic,  and  so  I  am.  But,  Sir,  none  of 
us  have  yet  risen  high  enough.  Afar  off,  I  see  Carver 
and  Bradford,  and  I  mean  to  get  up  to  them.  [Loud 
cheers.] 


LETTER 

TO  JUDGE    SHAW   AND    PRESIDENT  WALKER.» 


To  LEMUEL  SHAW,  Chief  Justice  of  Massachusetts,  and 

JAMES  WALKER,  President  of  Harvard  University. 


ENTLEMEN  :  Now  that  the  press  has  ceased  its 
V.T  ridicule  of  your  homage  to  Morphy  at  the  Revere 
House,  —  a  criticism  of  little  importance,  —  I  wish  to  pre 
sent  the  scene  to  you  in  a  different  light. 

You,  Mr.  Chief  Justice,  represent  the  law  of  the  Com 
monwealth  ;  to  you,  Mr.  President,  is  committed  the 
moral  guardianship  of  the  young  men  of  her  University. 
Yet  I  find  you  both  at  a  table  of  revellers,  under  a  roof 
whose  chief  support  and  profit  come  from  the  illegal  sale 
of  intoxicating  drink,  and  which  boasts  itself  the  champion 
and  head  of  an  organized,  flagrant,  and  avowed  contempt 
of  the  laws  of  the  Commonwealth.  No  one  was  surprised 
to  see  at  your  side  a  Mayor  who  owes  his  office  to  the 
votes  of  that  disorderly  band  whose  chief  is  the  Revere 
House.  Few  wondered  at  the  presence  of  a  Professor 
placed  by  private  munificence  to  watch  over  the  piety  and 
morals  of  your  College,  Mr.  President  ;  though  a  manly 
protest  against  fashionable  vice  might  do  something  to  re- 

*  The  hotels  of  Boston,  with  the  connivance  of  the  City  Government, 
refuse  to  obey  the  Maine  Liquor  Law  of  Massachusetts.  The  Revere  House, 
the  most  fashionable  of  our  hotels,  was  chosen  to  offer  a  public  dinner  to 
Morphy,  at  which  were  present  Judge  Shaw,  President  Walker,  the  Mayor, 
Professor  Huntington,  and  other  dignitaries. 


238  LETTER  TO  JUDGE  SHAW 

deem  the  office  from  seeming  only  an  eaves-dropping  spy 
on  the  opinions  and  manners  of  young  men. 

But  you,  Mr.  Chief  Justice,  know  that  three  quarters, 
if  not  four  fifths,  of  all  crime  result  from  habits  of  intoxica 
tion  ;  that  nine  tenths,  at  least,  of  all  the  murderers  you 
have  sent  to  the  gallows  had  never  been  murderers  had 
they  not  first  been  drunkards.  You  can  look  round  you, 
and  back  for  fifty  years,  and  see  places  at  the  bar  and  on 
the  bench,  once  filled  by  genius  and  hope,  now  vacant,  — 
their  tenants  in  drunkards'  graves.  You  know  how  fear 
ful  the  peril  which  modern  civilization,  and  especially 
popular  institutions,  encounter  from  the  cheapness  of  liquor, 
and  the  habits  of  indulgence  in  all  our  great  cities ;  you 
know  the  long  and  earnest  labors  of  noble  men,  for  fifty 
years,  in  both  hemispheres,  against  this  evil,  and  the  mo 
mentous  experiment  they  are  trying  of  legal  prohibition  to 
arrest  it,  resulting  here  in  a  stringent  law  against  the  sale 
of  intoxicating  drinks.  You  know  also  that  the  Revere 
House  is  the  insolent  leader  of  that  heartless  and  selfish 
faction  which,  defeated  before  the  people,  seeks,  by  un 
blushing  defiance  of  law,  to  overbear  opinion  and  statute. 

And  you,  Mr.  President,  the  moral  guardian  of  the 
young  men  of  our  University,  well  know  its  venerable 
statutes  and  unceasing  efforts  to  prevent  the  use  of  wine 
within  its  walls.  You  know  how  many,  often  the  bright 
est,  names  on  your  catalogue,  too  early  marked  with  the 
asterisk  of  death,  owe  their  untimely  end  to  wine.  Both 
of  you  know  that  the  presence  of  men  holding  such  offices 
as  yours  goes  as  far  as  recreant  office  and  reputation  can 
to  make  a  bad  roof  respectable. 

Yet  I  find  you  both  at  a  midnight  revel,  doing  your 
utmost  to  give  character  to  a  haunt  which  boasts  its  open 
and  constant  defiance  of  the  moral  sense  of  the  State,  sol 
emnly  expressed  in  its  statutes. 

No  one  denies,  Gentlemen,  your  right  to  indulge  what 


AND  PRESIDENT   WALKER,  239 

social  habits  you  please  in  the  privacy  of  your  own  dwell 
ings  ;  or,  in  travelling,  to  use  the  customary  accommoda 
tions  of  an  inn,  even  though  intoxicating  drink  is  sold  on 
its  premises.  Few  will  care  to  criticise,  if,  choosing  some 
decent  roof,  you  join  your  fellows  and  mock  the-  moral 
sentiment  of  the  community  by  a  public  carousal.  But 
while  you  hold  these  high  offices,  we,  the  citizens  of  a 
Commonwealth  whose  character  you  represent,  emphati 
cally  deny  your  right  to  appear  at  illegal  revels  in  a  gilded 
grog-shop,  which,  but  for  the  sanction  of  such  as  you,  had 
long  ago  met  the  indictment  it  deserves.  How  can  we 
expect  the  police  to  execute  a  law  upon  which  the  Chief 
Justice  pours  contempt  by  his  example  ?  How  shall  the 
grand  jury  indict  the  nuisance  of  which  the  Supreme 
Bench  has,  for  an  hour,  made  a  part  ?  We,  the  citizens, 
have  a  right  to  claim  that,  should  public  opinion,  by  our 
labors,  reach  the  point  of  presenting  these  gorgeous  grog 
shops  at  the  criminal  bar,  we  shall  not  find  their  frequent 
ers  on  the  bench. 

Again  and  again,  Mr.  Chief  Justice,  have  I  heard  you, 
at  critical  moments,  in  a  voice  whose  earnest  emotion  half 
checked  its  utterance,  remind  your  audience  of  the  sacred 
duty  resting  on  each  man  to  respect  and  obey  the  law ; 
assuring  us  that  the  welfare  of  society  was  bound  up  in 
this  individual  submission  to  existing  law.  How  shall  the 
prisoner  at  the  bar  reconcile  the  grave  sincerity  of  the 
magistrate  with  this  heedless  disregard  by  the  man  of  most 
important  laws  ?  If,  again,  the  times  should  call  you  to 
bid  us  smother  justice  and  humanity  at  the  command  of 
statutes,  we  may  remind  you  with  what  heartless  indiffer 
ence  you  treated  the  law  you  were  sworn  and  paid  to 
uphold,  and  one  on  which  the  hearts  of  the  best  men  in 
the  State  were  most  strongly  set.  Was  it  not  enough  that 
you  let  History  paint  you  bowing  beneath  a  slave -hunter's 
chain  to  enter  your  own  court-room  ?  but  must  you  also 


240  LETTER  TO  JUDGE  SHAW 

present  yourself  in  public,  lifting  to  your  lips  the  wine- 
cup,  which,  by  the  laws  of  the  State  over  whose  courts 
you  preside,  it  is  an  indictable  offence  and  a  nuisance  tc 
sell  you? 

And  let  me  remind  you,  Mr.  President,  that  even  your 
young  men  sometimes  pause  amid  scenes  of  temptation,  or 
in  our  streets,  where  every  tenth  door  opens  to  vice, — 
pause  at  some  chance  thought  of  home  or  rising  regard  for 
the  sentiment  of  the  community.  And,  Sir,  should  such 
frail  purpose  of  even  one  youth  falter  before  the  sight  of 
his  President  in  a  circle  of  wine-bibbers,  and  that  fall  lead 
to  an  unhonored  grave,  you  will  be  bound  to  remember 
that,  in  the  check  and  example  you  promised  and  were 
expected  and  set  to  hold  upon  him,  you  wholly  failed ; 
that  in  the  most  impressible  moments  of  his  life  he  saw  the 
virtue  of  the  State  struggling  with  its  sensual  indulgence, 
its  lust  of  dishonorable  gain,  its  base  pandering  to  appetite, 
already  too  strong ;  and  in  that  struggle  he  saw  your 
weight  ostentatiously  thrown  into  the  scale  of  open  and 
contemptuous  disregard  of  the  moral  sense  of  the  State. 
I  well  remember  when,  from  a  pulpit  constantly  boasting 
that  its  new  creed  had  thrown  awray  a  formal  and  hollow 
faith  and  brought  in  the  wholesome  doctrine  of  works, 
you  painted,  so  vividly,  how  hard  it  is  for  young  men  to 
say  "  No."  Is  this,  Sir,  the  method  you  choose  to  illus 
trate  the  practical  value  of  the  new  faith,  and  this  the.  help 
you  .extend  to  the  faltering  virtue  of  your  pupils,  giving 
the  sanction  of  your  character  arid  office  to  the  prince  of 
rumsellers  and  law-breakers,  and  flinging  insult  on  one 
of  the  noblest  reforms  of  the  age  ? 

I  admit  the  right  and  duty  of  minorities  to  disregard  im 
moral  or  unconstitutional  laws.     But  no  one  ever  though 
the  prohibitory  law  immoral,  and  you,  Mr.  Chief  Justice, 
have  affirmed  its  constitutionality.     Neither  do  I  now  ar 
raign  you,  Gentlemen,  for  your  private  habit  of  wine-drink- 


AND   PRESIDENT   WALKER.  241 

ing.  I  do  not  complain  that  a  judge,  who  sees  so  much 
crime  come  from  it,  still  gives  it  his  countenance ;  that  a 
clergyman  —  the  chief  apostle  of  whose  faith  declared  he 
would  eat  no  meat  while  the  world  stood,  if  so  doing  made 
his  brother  to  offend  —  still  throws  that  stumbling-block 
in  the  way  of  his  pupils.  But  I  arraign  the  Chief  Justice 
of  Massachusetts,  and  the  President  of  Harvard  Univer 
sity,  because,  when  the  rum  interest  of  the  State  is  mar 
shalling  its  strength  to  beat  down  a  good  and  constitutional 
law  by  gross,  open,  and  avowed  disobedience,  they  are 
found  lending  their  names,  character,  and  office  to  give  re 
spectability  to  the  grog-shop  whose  wealth  enables  it  to 
lead  that  dishonorable  and  disloyal  effort.  As  a  citizen,  I 
claim  that  you  disgraced  your  places,  if  not  yourselves ; 
and  I  hope  the  day  will  come  when  such  insult  by  such 
high  officers  to  any  statute  of  the  Commonwealth,  much 
more  to  one  representing  its  highest  moral  purpose,  will 
be  deemed  cause  enough  to  impeach  the  one  and  remove 

the  other. 

WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

August  1,  1859. 


IDOLS.* 


MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  LADIES  AND  GENTLE 
MEN  :  I  feel  half  inclined  to  borrow  a  little  wit 
from  an  article  in  a  late  number  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
— "  My  Double,  and  how  he  undid  me,"  —  and  say,  "I 
agree  entirely  with  the  gentleman  who  has  just  taken  his 
seat."  [Laughter.]  "  So  much  has  been  said,  and  so 
well  said,  that  I  feel  there  is  no  need  of  my  occupying 
your  attention."  [Renewed  laughter.]  But  then  I  should 
lose  the  hearty  satisfaction  it  gives  me  to  say  with  what 
delight  I  stand  upon  this  platform,  and  how  sincerely  I 
appreciate  the  honor  you  do  me,  Mr.  Chairman,  by  allow 
ing  me  to  aid  in  opening  this  course  of  lectures.  I  know, 
Sir,  that  you  hoped,  as  I  did,  that  this  post  would  be  filled 
by  our  great  Senator,  who  seeks  health  on  a  foreign  soil. 
No  one  laments  more  sincerely  than  I  do  that  he  felt  it 
impossible  and  inconsistent  with  his  other  duties  to  be 
here.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  occasion  was 
worthy  of  a  word  even  from  Charles  Stunner.  [Hearty 
applause.] 

Appreciating  the  lyceum  system  as  I  do,  looking  upon 
it  as  one  of  the  departments  of  the  national  school,  truly 
American  in  its  origin,  and  eminently  republican  in  its 
character  and  end,  I  feel  how  eloquently  his  voice  would 
have  done  it  justice.  For  this  is  no  common  evening,  Mr. 
President.  The  great  boast  of  New  England  is  liberal 

*  Fraternity  Lecture  delivered  in  Boston,  October  4,  1859 


IDOLS.  243 

culture  and  toleration.  Easier  to  preach  than  to  practise  ! 
Many  lyceums  have  opened  their  doors  to  men  of  different 
shades  of  opinion,  and  some  few  have  even  granted  a  fair 
amount  of  liberty  in  the  choice  of  subject,  and  the  expres 
sion  of  individual  opinion.  None  of  us  can  forget,  on  such 
an  occasion  as  this,  the  eminently  catholic  spirit  and  brilliant 
success  of  that  course  of  Antislavery  Lectures  in  the  winter 
of  1854  and  1855,  which  we  owed  chiefly  to  the  energy 
and  to  the  brave  and  liberal  spirit  of  Dr.  James  W.  Stone. 
But  you  go,  Gentlemen,  an  arrow's  flight  beyond  all  ly 
ceums  ;  for,  recognizing  the  essential  character  of  civiliza 
tion,  you  place  upon  your  platform  the  representatives  of 
each  sex  and  of  both  races.  Yes,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen, 
you  will  listen  to  consummate  eloquence,  never  heard  in 
Boston  before  from  the  lyceum  platform,  because  "guilty 
of  a  skin  not  colored  like  our  own."  [Applause.]  And 
you  will  listen,  besides,  to  woman,  gracefully  standing  on 
a  platform  which  boasts  itself  the  source  of  national  educa 
tion.  For  decent  justice  has  not  been  done  to  woman,  in 
regard  to  her  influence,  either  upon  literature  or  society ; 
and  I  welcome  with  inexpressible  delight  the  inauguration 
of  a  course  of  lectures  national  and  American  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  words. 

There  are  men  who  prate  about  "  nationality,"  and  "  the 
empire,"  and  "manifest  destiny," — using  brave  words, 
when  their  minds  rise  no  higher  than  some  petty  mass  of 
white  States  making  money  out  of  cotton  and  corn.  ^My 
idea  of  American  nationality  makes  it  the  last  best  growth 
of  the  thoughtful  mind  of  the  century,  treading  under  foot 
sex  and  race,  caste  and  condition,  and  collecting  on  the 
broad  bosom  of  what  deserves  the  name  of  an  empire, 
under  the  shelter  of  noble,  just,  and  equal  laws,  all  races, 
all  customs,  all  religions,  all  languages,  all  literature,  and 
all  ideas.'  /I  remember,  a  year  or  two  ago,  they  told  us  of 
a  mob~aT"Milwaukie  that  forced  a  man  to  bring  out  the 


244  IDOLS. 

body  of  his  wife,  born  in  Asia,  —  which,  according  to  the 
custom  of  her  forefathers,  he  was  about  to  burn,  —  and 
compelled  him  to  submit  to  American  funeral  rites,  which 
his  soul  abhorred.  The  sheriff  led  the  mob,  and  the  press 
of  the  State  vindicated  the  act.  This  is  not  my  idea  of 
American  civilization.  They  will  show  you  at  Rome  the 
stately  column  of  the  Emperor  Trajan.  Carved  on  its 
outer  surface  is  the  triumphal  march  of  the  Emperor, 
when  he  came  back  to  Rome,  leading  all  nations,  all 
tongues,  all  customs,  all  races,  in  the  retinue  of  his  con 
quest  ;  and  they  traced  it  on  the  eternal  marble,  circling 
the  pillar  from  base  to  capital.  Just  such  is  my  idea 
of  the  empire,  broad  enough  and  brave  enough  to  admit 
both  sexes,  all  "creeds,  and  all  tongues  in  the  triumphal 
procession  of  this  great  daughter  of  the  west  of  the  At 
lantic.  [Loud  applause.]  That  is  the  reason  why  I  hail 
this  step  in  Boston,  —  the  brain  of  the  Union,  —  saying 
to  the  negro  and  to  woman,  "  Take  your  place  among  the 
teachers  of  American  Democracy."  [Applause.] 

I  said  justice  had  never  be*en  done  to  woman  for  her 
influence  upon  literature  and  society.  Society  is  the  nat 
ural  outgrowth  of  the  New  Testament,  and  yet  nothing 
deserving  of  the  name  ever  existed  in  Europe  until,  two 
centuries  ago,  in  France,  woman  called  it  into  being.  So 
ciety,  —  the  only  field  where  the  sexes  have  ever  met  on 
terms  of  equality,  the  arena  where  character  is  formed 
and  studied,  the  cradle  and  the  realm  of  public  opinion, 
the  crucible  of  ideas,  the  World's  university,  at  once  a 
school  and  a  theatre,  the  spur  and  the  crown  of  am 
bition,  the  tribunal  which  unmasks  pretension  and  stamps 
real  merit,  the  power  that  gives  government  leave  to 
be,  and  outruns  the  lazy  Church  in  fixing  the  moral 
sense  of  the  age,  —  who  shall  fitly  describe  the  lofty 
place  of  this  element  in  the  history  of  the  last  two  centu 
ries  ?  Who  shall  deny  that,  more  than  anything  else,  it 


IDOLS.  245 

deserves  the  name  of  the  most  controlling  element  in  the 
history  of  the  two  centuries  just  finished  ?  And  yet  this 
is  the  realm  of  woman,  the  throne  which,  like  a  first  con 
queror,  she  founded  and  then  filled. 

So  with  literature.  The  literature  of  three  centuries 
ago  is  not  decent  to  be  read :  we  expurgate  it.  Within 
a  hundred  years,  woman  has  become  a  reader,  and  for  that 
reason,  as  much  or  more  than  anything  else,  literature  has 
sprung  to  a  higher  level.  No  need  now  to  expurgate  all 
you  read.  Woman,  too,  is  now  an  author  ;  and  I  under 
take  to  say  that  the  literature  of  the  next  century  will  be 
richer  than  the  classic  epochs,  for  that  cause.  Truth  is 
one  forever,  absolute  ;  but  opinion  is  truth  filtered  through 
the  moods,  the  blood,  the  disposition,  of  the  spectator. 
Man  has  looked  at  creation,  and  given  us  his  impressions, 
in  Greek  literature  and  English,  one-sided,  half-way,  all 
awry.  Woman  now  takes  the  stand  to  give  us  her  views 
of  God's  works  and  her  own  creation  ;  and  exactly  in  pro 
portion  as  woman,  though  equal,  is  eternally  different  from 
man,  just  in  that  proportion  will  the  literature  of  the  next 
century  be  doubly  rich,  because  we  shall  have  both  sides. 
You  might  as  well  plant  yourself  in  the  desert,  under  the 
changeless  gray  and  blue,  and  assert  that  you  have  seen 
all  the  wonders  of  God's  pencil,  as  maintain  that  a  male 
literature,  Latin,  Greek,  or  Asiatic,  can  be  anything  but  a 
half  part,  poor  and  one-sided  ; '  as  well  develop  only  mus 
cle,  shutting  out  sunshine  and  color,  and  starving  the  flesh 
from  your  angular  limbs,  anS  then  advise  men  to  scorn 
Titian's  flesh  and  the  Apollo,  since  you  have  exhausted 
manly  beauty,  as  think  to  stir  all  the  depths  of  music  with 
only  half  the  chords.  [Applause.]  The  diapason  of  hu 
man  thought  was  never  struck  till  Christian  culture  sum 
moned  woman  into  the  republic  of  letters  ;  and  experience 
as  well  as  nature  tells  us,  "  what  God  hath  joined,  let  not 
man  put  asunder."  [Applause.] 


246  IDOLS. 

I  welcome  woman,  therefore,  to  the  platform  of  the 
world's  teachers,  and  I  look  upon  the  world,  in  a  very 
important  sense,  as  one  great  school.  As  Humboklt  said, 
ten  years  ago,  "  Governments,  religion,  property,  books, 
are  nothing  but  the  scaffolding  to  build  a  man.  Earth 
holds  up  to  her  Master  no  fruit  but  the  finished  man." 
Education  is  the  only  interest  worthy  the  deep,  control 
ling  anxiety  of  the  thoughtful  man.  To  change  Bryant  a 
little : 

"The  hills, 

Rock-ribbed  and  ancient  as  the  sun, 

The  venerable  woods,  rivers  that  move 

In  majesty,  and  the  complaining  brooks 

That  make  the  meadows  green,  and,  poured  round  all 

Old  Ocean's  gray  and  melancholy  waste, 

Are  but  the  solemn  decorations  all 

Of  the  great  school  of  man." 

It  is  in  this  light  and  for  this  value  that  I  appreciate  the 
lyceum.  We  have  four  sources  of  education  in  this  coun 
try,  —  talk,  literature,  government,  religion.  The  lyceum 
makes  one  and  the  most  important  element  of  each.  It  is 
a  church,  without  a  creed,  and  with  a  constant  rotation  of 
clergymen.  [Applause.]  It  teaches  closer  ethics  than 
the  pulpit.  Let  lyceum  committees  debate  whether  they 
shall  invite  Theodore  Parker,  or  theological  papers  scold 
because  Beecher  stands  on  your  platform,  and  out  of  such 
debate  the  people  will  pick  a  lesson,  of  toleration  better, 
more  real,  and  more  impressive  than  Locke's  Treatise  or 
a  dozen  sermons  could  give  them.  Responsibility  teaches 
as  nothing  else  can.  That  is  God's  great  motor  power. 
When  your  horse  cannot  move  his  load,  throw  a  sack  of 
grain  on  his  back  and  he  draws  easily  on.  He  draws  by 
weight,  not  by  muscle.  Give  the  masses  nothing  to  do, 
and  they  will  topple  down  thrones  and  cut  throats ;  give 
them  the  government,  as  here,  and  they  will  make  pulpits 
useless  and  colleges  an  impertinence.  It  is  the  best  part 


IDOLS.  247 

of  literature,  too,  for  it  is  the  only  part  that  is  vital.  I 
value  letters.  I  thank  God  that  I  was  taught  for  many 
years  ;  enough  to  see  inside  the  sham. 

The  upper  tier  of  letters  is  mere  amateur  j  does  not 
understand  its  own  business.  William  H.  Prescott  would 
have  washed  his  hand  twice,  had  Walker  the  filibuster 
grasped  it  unwittingly ;  but  he  sits  down  in  his  study  and 
writes  the  history  of  filibusters,  respectable  only  because 
they  died  three  hundred  years  ago  !  He  did  not  know 
that  he  was  the  mere  annalist  of  the  Walkers  and  Jeffer 
son  Davises  of  that  age.  [Applause.] 

[In  this  connection,  Mr.  Phillips  referred  to  Bunyan  and 
to  Shakespeare,  by  way  of  illustrating  his  point  that  the 
literature  which  is  of  use  is  the  literature  that  is  not  hon 
ored  as  such  when  it  is  written.] 

So  it  is  with  government.  Government  arrogates  to  it 
self  that  it  alone  forms  men.  As  well  might  the  man  down 
here  in  the  court-house,  who  registers  the  birth  of  children, 
imagine  that  he  was  the  father  of  all  the  children  he  regis 
ters.  [Loud  laughter.]  Everybody  knows  that  govern 
ment  never  began  anything.  It  is  the  whole  world  that 
thinks  and  governs.  Books,  churches,  governments,  are 
what  we  make  them.  France  is  Catholic,  and  has  a  pope  ; 
but  she  is  the  most  tolerant  country  in  the  world  in  mat 
ters  of  religion.  New  England  is  Protestant,  and  has 
toleration  written  all. over  her  statute-book;  but  she  has  a 
pope  in  every  village,  and  the  first  thing  that  tests  a  boy's 
courage  is  to  dare  to  differ  from  his  father.  [Applause.] 
Popes  !  why,  we  have  got  two  as  signal  popes  as  they  had 
in  Europe  three  centuries  ago,  —  there  is  Bellows  at 
Avignon  and  Adams  at  Rome.  [Great  merriment,  fol 
lowed  by  loud  applause.]  So  with  government.  Some 
think  government  forms  men.  Let  us  take  an  example. 

Take  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Webster  as  measures  and 
examples  ;  two  great  men,  remarkably  alike.  Neither  of 


248  IDOLS. 

them  ever  had  an  original  idea.  [Laughter.]  Neither 
kept  long  any  idea  he  borrowed.  Both  borrowed  from 
any  quarter,  high  or  low,  north  or  south,  friend  or  enemy. 
Both  were  weathercocks,  not  winds  ;  creatures,  not  crea 
tors.  Yet  Peel  died  England's  idol,  —  the  unquestioned 
head  of  the  statesmen  of  the  age  ;  Webster  the  disgraced 
and  bankrupt  chief  of  a  broken  and  ruined  party.  Why  ? 
Examine  the  difference.  Webster  borrowed  free  trade  of 
Calhoun,  and  tariff  of  Clay ;  took  his  constitutional  prin 
ciples  from  Marshall,  his  constitutional  learning  from 
Story,  and  his  doctrine  of  treason  from  Mr.  George  Tick- 
nor  Curtis  [laughter]  ;  and  he  followed  Channing  and 
Garrison  a  little  way,  then  turned  doughface  in  the  wake 
of  Douglas  and  Davis  [applause  and  a  few  hisses]  ;  at 
first,  with  Algernon  Sidney  (my  blood  boils  yet  as  I  think 
how  I  used  to  declaim  it),  he  declared  the  best  legacy  he 
could  leave  his  children  was  free  speech  and  the  example 
of  using  it ;  then  of  Preston  S.  Brooks  and  Legree  he 
took  lessons  in  smothering  discussion  and  hunting  slaves. 
In  1820,  when  the  world  was  asleep,  he  rebuked  the  slave- 
trade  ;  in  1850,  when  the  battle  was  hottest,  he  let 
Everett  omit  from  his  works  all  the  best  antislavery  ut 
terances  ! 

Sir  Robert  Peel  was  just  like  him.  He  "  changed 
every  opinion,  violated"  (so  says  one  of  the  Reviews) 
"  every  pledge,  broke  up  every  party,  and  deserted  every 
colleague  he  ever  had,"  yet  his  sun  went  down  in  glory. 
Why  ?  Because  his  step  was  ever  onward  ;  he  lived  to 
learn.  Every  change  was  a  sacrifice,  and  he  could  truly 
use,  in  1829,  the  glorious  Latin  Webster  borrowed  of  him, 
"  Vera  pro  gratis"  —  "I  tell  you  unwelcome  truth"  But 
Webster's  steps,  crab-like,  were  backwards.  [Applause 
and  hisses.]  Hisses  !  well,  "  Because  thou  art  virtuous, 
shall  there  be  no  more  cakes  and  ale  ?  "  Because  you 
have  your  prejudices,  shall  there  be  no  history  written  ? 


IDOLS. 

Our  task  is  unlike  that  of  some  recent  meetings,  —  His 
tory,  not  flattery.  [Applause.]  Webster  moved  by  com 
pulsion  or  calculation,  not  by  conviction.  He  sunk  from 
free  trade  to  a  tariff;  from  Chief  Justice  Marshall  to 
Mr.  George  Ticknor  Curtis  ;  from  Garrison  to  Douglas ; 
from  Algernon  Sidney  to  the  slave  overseers.  I  read  in 
this  one  of  the  dangers  of  our  form  of  government.  As 
Tocqueville  says  so  wisely,  u  The  weakness  of  a  Democ 
racy  is  that,  unless  guarded,  it  merges  in  despotism." 
Such  a  life  is  the  first  step,  and  half  a  dozen  are  the 
Niagara  carrying  us  over. 

But  both  "builded  better  than  they  knew.'  Both 
forced  the  outward  world  to  think  for  itself,  and  become 
statesmen.  No  man,  says  D'Israeli,  ever  weakened  gov 
ernment  so  much  as  Peel.  Thank  Heaven  for  that !  —  so 
much  gained.  Changing  every  day,  their  admirers  were 
forced  to  learn  to  think  for  themselves.  In  the  country 
once  I  lived  with  a  Democrat  who  never  had  an  opinion 
on  the  day's  news  till  he  had  read  the  Boston  Post. 
[Laughter.]  Such  close  imitation  is  a  little  too  hard. 
Webster's  retainers  fell  off  into  the  easier  track  of  doing 
their  own  thinking.  A  German,  once  sketching  a  Mid 
dlesex  County  landscape,  took  a  cow  for  his  fixed  point  of 
perspective  ;  she  moved,  and  his  whole  picture  was  a  mud 
dle.  Following  Peel  and  Webster  was  a  muddle  ;  hence 
came  the  era  of  outside  agitation,  — and  those  too  lazy  to 
think  for  themselves  at  least  took  a  fixed  point  for  their 
political  perspective,  —  Garrison  or  Charles  Sunnier,  for 
instance. 

[Mr.  Phillips  continued  by  remarking  that  all  the  peo 
ple  had  ever  asked  of  government  was,  not  to  take  a  step 
ahead,  not  to  originate  anything,  but  only  to  UNDO  its  mis 
takes,  to  take  its  foot  from  off  its  victim,  take  away  its 
custom-houses,  abolish  its  absurd  and  wicked  legislation 
and  free  the  slave.  He  then  proceeded  to  urge  upon  Ins 


250  IDOLS. 

hearers  the  importance  of  free  individual  thought,  —  the 
questioning  of  whatever  came  before  us,  with  an  honest 
desire  and  eifort  to  reach  truth.]  He  said  :  — 

We  shall  have  enough  to  do  if  we  do  our  duty.  The 
world  is  awake,  —  some  wholly,  and  some  only  half. 
Men  who  gather  their  garments  scornfully  and  close  about 
them  when  their  fellows  offer  to  express  sympathy  for  the 
bravest  scholar  and  most  Christian  minister  the  liberal 
New  England  sects  know,  —  these  timid  little  souls  make 
daily  uproar  in  the  market-place,  crying  for  a  Broad 
Church,  a  BROAD  Church,  —  and  one  who  lives  by  ven 
turing  a  bold  theory  to-day,  and  spending  to-morrow  in 
taking  it  back,  finding  that  he  has  been 

"  Dropping  buckets  into  empty  wells, 
And  growing  old  in  drawing  nothing  out," 

assures  you  that  it  is  not  cowardice,  but  lack  of  candles 
and  of  a  liturgy,  that  makes  him  useless  ;  and,  kind-souled 
man,  he  apologizes,  and  begs  us  not  to  be  startled  with  his 
strange  new  views,  having  lived  so  long  in  the  thin  air  of 
his  own  vanity  that  he  does  not  know  we  have  had  a  broad 
Church  for  fifteen  years,  —  broad  enough  for  all  races  and 
colors,  all  sects,  creeds,  and  parties,  for  heads  and  hearts 
too ;  broad  enough  to  help  the  poor,  teach  the  ignorant, 
shield  the  weak,  raise  the  fallen,  and  lift  the  high  higher, 
to  honor  God  and  earn  the  hate  of  bad  men,  —  ministered 
to  by  one  whose  broad  diocese  is  bounded  on  the  north  by 
the  limits  of  habitable  land,  runs  west  with  civilization, 
and  east  with  the  English  language,  and  on  the  south 
stretches  to  the  line  where  men  stop  thinking  and  live 
only  to  breathe  and  to  steal.  [Loud  applause.] 

This  Broad-Church  reformer  knows  his  place  so  little, 
that  he  sneers  at  spiritualism  and  socialism,  as  "  vices 
entitled  to  no  terms."  One,  an  honest  effort,  however 
mistaken,  to  make  all  men  wholly  and  really  brothers  in 
life,  property,  and  thought ;  and  the  other,  that  reaching 


IDOLS.  251 

into  the  land  of  spirit  which  has  stirred  the  heart  and 
roused  the  brain  of  the  best  men  of  all  ages,  and  given  to 
literature  its  soul.  Does  he  give  no  heed  to  that  profound 
maxim  of  Coleridge,  —  "  There  are  errors  which  no  wise 
man  will  treat  with  rudeness  while  there  is  a  probability 
that  they  may  be  the  refraction  of  some  great  truth  still 
below  the  horizon  "  ? 

Yes,  this  "  Broad  Church  "  !  —  humanity  would  weep 
if  it  ever  came,  for  one  of  its  doctrines  is,  that  the  statute- 
book  is  more  binding  than  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and 
that  the  rights  of  private  judgment  are  a  curse.  Save  us 
from  a  Church  not  broad  enough  to  cover  woman  and  the 
slave,  all  the  room  being  kept  for  the  grog-shop  and  the 
theatre,  —  provided  the  one  will  keep  sober  enough  to 
make  the  responses,  and  the  other  will  lend  its  embroid 
ered  rags  for  this  new  baby-house.  [Laughter  and  ap 
plause.] 

The  honors  we  grant  mark  how  high  we  stand,  and 
they  educate  the  future'.  J  The  men  we  honor,  and  the 
maxims  we  lay  down  in  measuring  our  favorites,  show  the 
level  and  morals  of  the  time.  Two  names  have  been  in 
every  one's  mouth  of  late,  and  men  have  exhausted  lan 
guage  in  trying  to  express  their  admiration  and  their 
respect.  The  courts  have  covered  the  grave  of  Mr. 
Choate  with  feulbgyl  Let  us  see  what  is  their  idea  of  a 
great  lawyer.  We  are  told  that  "  he  worked  hard," 
"  he  never  neglected  his  client,"  "  he,  flung  over  the 
discussions  of  the  forum  the  grace  of  a  rare  scholarship," 
"  no  pressure  or  emergency  ever  stirred  him  to  an 
unkind  word."  A  ripe  scholar,  a  profound  lawyer,  a 
faithful  servant  of  his  client,  a  gentleman.  This  is  a  good 
record  surely.  May  he  sleep  in  peace  I  What  he  earned, 
God  grant  he  may  have  !  But  the  bar  that  seeks  to  claim 
for  such  a  one  a  place  among  great  jurists  must  itself  be 
weak  indeed  ;  for  this  is  only  to  make  him  out  the  one-eyed 


252  IDOLS. 

monarch  of  the  blind.  Not  one  high  moral  trait  specified  ; 
not  one  patriotic  act  mentioned ;  not  one  patriotic  service 
even  claimed.  Look  at  Mr.  Webster's  idea  of  what  a 
lawyer  should  be  in  order  to  be  called  great,  in  the  sketch 
he  drew  of  Jeremiah  Mason,  and  notice  what  stress  he 
lays  on  the  religious  and  moral  elevation,  and  the  glorious 
and  high  purposes  which  crowned  his  life  !  Nothing  of 
this  now  !  I  forget.  Mr.  Hallett  did  testify  for  Mr. 
Choate's  religion  [laughter  and  applause]  ;  but  the  law 
maxim  is,  that  a  witness  should  be  trusted  only  in  matters 
he  understands,  and  that  evidence,  therefore,  amounts  to 
nothing.  [Merriment.]  Incessant  eulogy ;  but  not  a 
word  of  one  effort  to  lift  the  yoke  of  cruel  or  unequal 
legislation  from  the  neck  of  its  victim  ;  not  one  attempt  to 
make  the  code  of  his  country  wiser,  purer,  better ;  not  one 
effort  to  bless  his  times  or  breathe  a  higher  moral  purpose 
into  the  community  ;  not  one  blow  struck  for  right  or 
for  liberty,  while  the  battle  of  the  giants  was  going  on 
about  him  ;  not  one  patriotic  act  to  stir  the  hearts  of  his 
idolaters  ;  not  one  public  act  of  any  kind  whatever  about 
whose  merit  friend  or  foe  could  even  quarrel,  unless  when 
he  scouted  our  great  charter  as  a  "  glittering  generality," 
or  jeered  at  the  philanthropy  which  tried  to  practise  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount !  When  Cordus,  the  Roman  Sen 
ator,  whom  Tiberius  murdered,  was  addressing  his  fellows, 
he  began  :  "  Fathers,  they  accuse  me  of  illegal  words  ; 
plain  proof  that  there  are  no  illegal  deeds  with  which  to 
charge  me."  So  with  these  eulogies, — words,  nothing 
but  words ;  plain  proof  that  there  were  no  deeds  to 
praise. 

The  divine  can  tell  us  nothing  but  that  he  handed  a 
chair  or  a  dish  as  nobody  else  could  [laughter]  ;  in  poli 
tics,  we  are  assured  he  did  not  wish  to  sail  outside  of 
Daniel  Webster ;  and  the  Cambridge  Professor  tells  his 
pupils,  for  their  special  instruction,  that  he  did  not  dare  to 


IDOLS.  253 

think  in  religion,  for  fear  he  should  differ  from  South-side 
Adams  !  [Loud  laughter  and  applause.]  The  Professor 
strains  his  ethics  to  prove  that  a  good  man  may  defend  a 
bad  man.  Useless  waste  of  labor !  In  Egypt,  travellers 
tell  us  that  the  women,  wholly  naked,  are  very  careful  to 
veil  their  faces.  So  the  Professor  strains  his  ethics  to 
cover  this  one  fault.  Useless,  Sir,  while  the  whole  head 
is  sick  and  the  whole  heart  faint. 

Yet  this  is  the  model  which  Massachusetts  offers  to  the    I 
Pantheon  of  the  great  jurists  of  the  world  !  -4  > 

Suppose  we  stood  in  that  lofty  temple  of  jurisprudence, 
—  on  either  side  of  us  the  statues  of  the  great  lawyers  of 
every  age  and  clime,  —  and  let  us  see  what  part  New 
England  —  Puritan,  educated,  free  New  England  —  would 
bear  in  the  pageant.  Rome  points  to  a  colossal  figure  and 
says,  "  That  is  Papinian,  who,  when  the  Emperor  Cara- 
calla  murdered  his  own  brother,  and  ordered  the  lawyer 
to  defend  the  deed,  went  cheerfully  to  death,  rather  than 
sully  his  lips  with  the  atrocious  plea ;  and  that  is  Ulpian, 
who,  aiding  his  prince  to  put  the  army  below  the  law,  was 
massacred  at  the  foot  of  a  weak,  but  virtuous  throne." 

And  France  stretches  forth  her  grateful  hands,  crying, 
"  That  is  D'Aguesseau,  worthy,  when  he  went  to  face  an 
enraged  king,  of  the  farewell  his  wife  addressed  him,  — 
'  Go !  forget  that  you  have  a  wife  and  children  to  ruin, 
and  remember  only  that  you  have  France  to  save.'  ' 

England  says,  "  That  is  Coke,  who  flung  the  laurels  of 
eighty  years  in  the  face  of  the  first  Stuart,  in  defence  of 
the  people.  This  is  Selden,  on  every  book  of  whose  library 
you  saw  written  the  motto  of  which  he  lived  worthy, 
4  Before  everything,  Liberty  !  '  That  is  Mansfield,  silver- 
tongued,  who  proclaimed, 

1  Slaves  cannot  breathe  in  England ;  if  their  lungs 
Receive  our  air,  that  moment  they  are  free.' 

This  is  Romilly,  who  spent  life  trying  to  make  law  synony- 


254  IDOLS. 

mous  with  justice,  and  succeeded  in  making  life  and  prop 
erty  safer  in  every  city  of  the  empire.  And  that  is  Erskine, 
whose  eloquence,  spite  of  Lord  Eldon  and  George  III., 
made  it  safe  to  speak  and  to  print." 

Then  New  England  shouts,  "  This  is  Choate,  who  made 
it  safe  to  murder ;  and  of  whose  health  thieves  asked  before 
they  began  to  steal." 

Boston  had  a  lawyer  once,  worthy  to  stand  in  that  Pan 
theon  ;  one  whose  untiring  energy  held  up  the  right  arm 
of  Horace  Mann,  and  made  this  age  and  all  coming  ones 
his  debtors ;  one  whose  clarion  voice  and  life  of  consistent 
example  waked  the  faltering  pulpit  to  its  duty  in  the  cause 
of  temperance,  laying  on  that  altar  the  hopes  of  his  young 
ambition  ;  one  whose  humane  and  incessant  efforts  to  make 
the  penal  code  worthy  of  our  faith  and  our  age  ranked  his 
name  with  Mclntosh  and  Romilly,  with  Bentham,  Beccaria, 
and  Livingston.  Best  of  all,  one  who  had  some  claim  to 
say,  with  Selden,  "  Above  all  things,  Liberty,"  for  in  the 
slave's  battle  his  voice  was  of  the  bravest,  —  Robert  Ran- 
toul.  [Prolonged  and  hearty  plaudits.]  He  died  crowned 
with  the  laurels  both  of  the  Forum  and  Senate-house.  The 
Suffolk  Bar  took  no  note  of  his  death.  No  tongue  stirred 
the  air  of  the  courts  to  do  him  honor.  "  When  vice  is 
useful,  it  is  a  crime  to  be  virtuous,"  says  the  Roman  prov 
erb.  Of  that  crime,  Beacon  Street,  State  Street,  and 
Andover  had  judged  Rantoul  guilty. 

The  State,  for  the  second  time  in  her  history,  offers  a 
pedestal  for  the  statue  of  a  citizen.  Such  a  step  deserves 
thought.  On  this  let  us  dare  to  think.  Always  think 
twice  when  saints  and  sinners,  honest  men  and  editors, 
agree  in  a  eulogy.  [Laughter.]  All  wonders  deserve 
investigation,  specially  when  men  dread  it. 

No  man  criticises  when  private  friendship  moulds  the 

loved  form  in 

"  Stone  that  breathes  and  straggles, 
Or  brass  that  seems  to  speak." 


IDOLS.  255 

Let  Mr.  Webster's  friends  crowd  their  own  halls  and 
grounds  with  his  bust  and  statue.  That  is  no  concern  of 
ours.  But  when  they  ask  the  State  to  join  in  doing  him 
honor,  we  are  natives  of  Massachusetts,  and  claim  the 
right  to  express  an  opinion. 

It  is  a  grave  thing  when  a  State  puts  a  man  among  her 
jewels, — especially  one  whose  friends  frown  on  discus 
sion,  —  the  glitter  of  whose  fame  makes  doubtful  acts  look 
heroic.  One  paper,  a  tea-table  critic,  warns  a  speaker  not 
born  in  the  State  to  cease  his  criticism  of  the  Webster 
statue.  I  do  not  know  why  Massachusetts  may  not  im 
port  critics  as  well  as  heroes ;  for,  let  us  be  thankful, 
Webster  was  no  Boston  boy.  But  be  sure  you  exercise 
your  right  to  think  NOW. 

His  eulogy  has  tasked  the  ripest  genius  and  the  heartiest 
zeal.  Some  men  say  his  eulogist  has  no  heart.  That  is  a 
mistake  and  cruel  injustice  !  As  the  French  wit  said  of 
Fontenelle,  he  "  has  as  good  a  heart  as  can  be  made  out  of 
brains."  [Laughter.]  No  matter  what  act  Webster  did, 
no  matter  how  foul  the  path  he  trod,  he  never  lacked  some 
one  to  gild  it  with  a  Greek  anecdote,  or  hide  it  in  a  blaze 
of  declamation !  I  do  not  say  the  deed  was  always  whit 
ened,  but  surely  it  was  something  that  the  eulogist  shared 
the  stain.  They  say  in  England  that  when  Charles  X.,  an 
exile  in  England,  hunted  there,  others  floundered  through 
mud  and  water  as  they  could,  but  the  exiled  king  was  fol 
lowed  by  a  valet  who  flung  himself  down  in  his  path  and 
Charles  walked  over  him  as  indifferently  as  if  he  had  really 
been  a  plank.  How  clean  the  king  kept,  I  do  not  know. 
The  valet  got  very  muddy.  A  striking  picture  of  Web 
ster  and  his  eulogists ! 

His  bronze  figure  stands  on  the  State-House  Green. 
Standing  there,  it  reminds  me  of  some  lines,  written  in  an 
album  by  Webster,  when  asked  to  place  his  name  under 
that  of  John  Adams :  — 


256  IDOLS. 

"  If  by  his  name  I  write  my  own, 
'T  will  take  me  where  I  am  not  known ; 
The  cold  salute  will  meet  my  ear,  — 
'  Pray,  stranger,  how  did  you  come  here  ?  ' " 

In  the  printed  speech  of  Mr.  Everett,  you  will  find  three 
feet,  —  exactly  one  yard,  —  by  newspaper  measurement, 
about  the  Northeastern  Boundary  map  with  a  red  line  on  it ! 
but  not  a  line,  or  hardly  one,  relating  to  the  great  treason 
of  the  7th  of  March,  1850.  The  words  he  dared  to  speak, 
his  friends  dare  not  repeat ;  the  life  he  dared  to  live,  his 
friends  dare  not  describe,  at  the  foot  of  his  statue  !  To 
mention  now  what  he  thought  his  great  achievement  will 
be  deemed  unkind  ! 

Mr.  Everett's  silence  was  wise.  He  could  not  blame  ; 
nature  denied  him  the  courage.  He  was  too  wary  to 
praise,  for  he  recollected  the  French  proverb,  "Some 
compliments  are  curses."  So  he  obeyed  the  English 
statesman's  rule,  "  When  you  have  nothing  to  say,  be 
sure  and  say  nothing." 

But  that  is  the  printed  speech.  It  seems  some  meddle 
some  fellow  stood  within  reach  of  the  speaker,  and  actu 
ally  circulated,  it  is  said,  petitions  for  the  removal  of  the 
statue  from  the  public  grounds.  Then  the  orator  forgot 
his  caution,  and  interpolated  a  few  unpremeditated  sen 
tences,  "  very  forcible  and  eloquent,"  says  the  press,  spe 
cially  intended  for  this  critic ;  terming  this  impudent  med 
dler  "  Mr.  Immaculate,"  and  quoting  for  his  special  benefit 
the  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  Publican,  — "  God  be 
merciful  to  me  a  sinner !  "  Singular  eulogy,  to  make  out 
his  idol  a  miserable  "  sinner  "  !  [Laughter.]  Is  this  the 
usual  method,  Mr.  Chairman,  of  proving  one's  right  to  a 
statue  ?  The  Publican  repented,  and  was  forgiven ;  but 
is  a  statue,  ten  feet  high,  cast  in  bronze,  a  usual  element 
of  forgiveness  ?  And,  mark,  the  Publican  repented.  When 
did  Mr.  Webster  repent,  either  in  person  or  by  the  proxy 


IDOLS.  267 

of  Mr.  Edward  Everett  ?  We  have  no  such  record.  The 
sin  is  confessed,  acknowledged,  as  a  mistake  at  least ;  but 
there  's  no  repentance  ! 

Let  us  look  a  little  into  this  doctrine  of  statues  for  sin 
ners.  Take  Aaron  Burr.  Tell  of  his  daring  in  Canada, 
his  watch  on  the  Hudson,  of  submissive  juries,  of  his 
touching  farewell  to  the  Senate.  u  But  then  there  was 
that  indiscretion  as  to  Hamilton."  Well,  Mr.  Immacu 
late,  remember  "  the  Publican."  Or  suppose  we  take 
Benedict  Arnold,  —  brave  in  Connecticut,  gallant  at  Que 
bec,  recklessly  daring  before  Burgoyne  !  u  But  that  little 
peccadillo'  at  West  Point !  "  Think  of  "  the  Publican," 
Mr.  Immaculate.  Why,  on  this  principle,  one  might  claim 
a  statue  for  Milton's  Satan.  He  was  brave,  faithful  to  his 
party,  eloquent,  shrewd  about  many  a  map  "  with  a  red 
line  on  it "  !  There  's  only  that  trifle  of  the  apple  to  for 
give  and  forget  in  these  generous  and  charitable  days  ! 
No,  if  he  wants  an  illustration,  with  due  humility,  I  can 
give  the  orator  a  great  deal  better  one.  Sidney  Smith 
had  a  brother  as  witty  as  himself,  and  a  great  hater  of 
O'Connell.  "  Bobus  Smith "  (for  so  they  called  him) 
had  one  day  marshalled  O'ConnelPs  faults  at  a  dinner- 
talk,  when  his  opponent  flung  back  a  glowing  record  of 
the  great  Irishman's  virtues.  Smith  looked  down  a  mo 
ment.  "Well,  such  a  man,  —  such  a  mixture  ;  the  only 
way  would  be  to  hang  him  first,  and  then  erect  a  statue  to 
him  under  the  gallows."  A  disputed  statue  rising  out  of 
a  sea  of  angry  contempt,  half-hearted  admiration,  and  apol 
ogetic  eulogy,  reminds  me  of  the  Frenchman  tottering  up, 
at  eighty  years  old,  to  vote  for  Louis  Bonaparte.  "  Why, 
he  is  a  scoundrel,"  said  Victor  Hugo.  "  True,  —  very 
true,  —  but  he  is  a  necessary  scoundrel." 

Ah,  as  the  Greek  said,  "  many  men  know  how  to  flat 
ter,  few  men  know  how  to  praise."  These  Cambridge 
Professors  and  fair-weather  eulogists  have  no  ability  to 

17 


258  IDOLS. 

measure  "Webster,  —  either  liis  capacity  or  his  faults. 
They  were  dazzled  blind  by  the  splendor  of  his  endow 
ments,  they  were  lost  in  the  tumult  of  his  vices.  Theo 
dore  Parker's  estimate  is  the  truest  ever  made.  History 
will  adopt  it  as  her  verdict.  His  head  and  heart  were  the 
only  ones  large  enough  to  grasp  the  subject,  and  brave 
enough  to  paint  it  truly.  [Enthusiastic  applause.]  The 
real  admirer  of  Webster  turns  from  these  French  daubs  to 
find  there  the  cool,  truthful  tone  of  Raphael,  and  feels 
that  the  statesman  has  met  there  his  kindest  critic,  and  the 
man  his  most  appreciating  judge.  Accuse  us  not  if  we 
award  him  blame  as  well  as  praise.  As  I  said  just  now, 
our  task  is  history,  not  flattery.  I  know  well  that  every 
statesman  must  compromise  ;  but,  as  Macaulay  says,  "  A 
public  man  is  often  under  the  necessity  of  consenting  to 
measures  he  dislikes,  to  save  others  he  thinks  important. 
But  the  historian  is  under  no  such  necessity.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  one  of  his  most  sacred  duties  to  point  out 
CLEARLY  the  errors  of  those  whose  general  conduct  he 
approves."  If  this  be  true  of  "  errors"  how  still  more 
sacred  this  duty  when  the  question  is  one  of  treachery  to 
Liberty  herself ! 

Blame  me  not  that  I  again  open  the  record,  Mr.  Chair 
man.  His  injudicious  friends  will  not  let  him  die.  In 
deed,  the  heavy  yoke  he  laid  on  innocent  and  friendless 
victims  frets  and  curses  them  yet  too  keenly  to  allow  him 
to  be  forgotten.  He  reaps  only  what  he  sowed.  In  the 
Talmud,  the  Jews  have  a  story  that  Og,  King  of  Bashan, 
lifted  once  a  great  rock,  to  hurl  it  on  the  armies  of  Judah. 
God  hollowed  it  in  the  middle,  letting  it  slip  over  the 
giant's  neck,  there  to  rest  while  he  lived.  This  man  lifted 
the  Fugitive-Slave  Bill  to  hurl  it,  as  at  Syracuse,  on  the 
trembling  and  hunted  slave,  and  God  has  hung  it  like 
a  millstone  about  his  neck  fore  verm  ore.  [Applause.] 
While  the  echoes  of  Everett's  periods  still  lingered  in  our 


IDOLS.  259 

streets,  as  I  stood  with  the  fresh-printed  sheet  of  his  eulogy 
in  my  hand,  there  came  to  me  a  man,  successful  after 
eight  attempts,  in  flying  from  hondage.  Week  after  week 
he  had  been  in  the  woods,  half  starved,  seeking  in  vain  a 
shelter.  For  months  he  had  pined  in  dungeons,  waiting 
the  sullen  step  of  his  master.  At  last  God  blessed  his 
eighth  effort,  and  he  stood  in  Boston,  on  his  glad  way  from 
the  vulture  of  the  States  to  the  safe  refuge  of  English  law. 
He  showed  me  his  broad  bosom  scarred  all  over  with  the 
branding-iron,  his  back  one  mass  of  record  how  often  the 
lash  had  tortured  him  for  his  noble  efforts  to  get  free.  As 
I  looked  at  him,  the  empty  and  lying  eulogy  dropped  from 
my  nerveless  hand,  and  I  thanked  God  that  statue  and 
eulogy  both  were  only  a  horrid  nightmare,  and  that  there 
were  still  roofs  in  Boston,  safe  shelter  for  these  heroic 
children  of  God's  right  hand.  [Prolonged  cheering.] 

But  you  and  I,  Mr.  Chairman,  were  born  in  Massachu 
setts,  and  we  cannot  but  remember  that  the  character  of 
the  State  is  shown  by  the  character  of  those  it  crowns. 
A  brave  old  Englishman  tells  us  the  Greeks  "  had  officers 
who  did  pluck  down  statues  if  they  exceeded  due  symme 
try  and  proportion.  We  need  such  now,"  he  adds,  "  to 
order  monuments  according  to  men's  merits."  Indeed  we 
do  !  Daniel  Webster  said,  on  Bunker  Hill,  in  one  of  his 
most  glorious  bursts  of  eloquence  :  "  That  motionless  shaft 
will  be  the  most  powerful  of  speakers.  Its  speech  will  be 
of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  It  will  speak  of  patriotism 
and  of  courage.  It  will  speak  of  the  moral  improvement 
and  elevation  of  mankind.  Decrepit  age  will  lean  against 
its  base,  and  ingenuous  youth  gather  round  it,  speak  to 
each  other  of  the  glorious  events  with  which  it  is  con 
nected,  and  exclaim,  4  Thank  God  I  also  am  an  Ameri 
can  ! ' '  It  is  a  glorious  lesson,  and  the  noble  old  shaft 
tells  it  daily. 

But  when  ingenuous  youth  stand  at  his  pedestal,  what 
they  say  ?      "  Consummate  jurist  I     Alas  that  your 


260  IDOLS. 

latest  effort  was  to  sneer  at  a  '  higher  law ' !  Most  able 
and  eloquent  advocate  I  could  you  find  no  other  cause  to 
plead  than  that  of  our  lowest  instincts  against  our  highest 
and  holiest  sentiments  ?  Alas  that  your  last  and  ablest 
argument  was  the  duty  of  hunting  slaves  !  Sagacious 
statesmen  !  Fated  to  die  not  very  old,  and  yet  live  long 
enough  to  see  all  the  plans  of  your  manhood  become 
obsolete  ideas,  except  just  those  you  had  abandoned  ! 
Surely  you  were  a  great  party  leader  !  for  you  found  the 
Whig  party  strong,  spent  life  in  its  service,  and  died 
prophesying  its  annihilation  ;  found  it  decent,  at  least  in 
profession,  left  it  despicable  in  utter  shamelessness ;  found 
it  the  natural  ally  of  free  labor  and  free  speech,  stirred  it 
to  a  contest  with  its  rival  in  servile  bidding  for  South 
ern  fellowship,  and  left  it  despicable  for  the  attempt,  and 
still  more  despicable  and  ridiculous  for  its  failure  !  The 
curses  of  the  poor  have  blighted  your  laurels.  You  were 
mourned  in  ceiled  houses  and  the  marts  of  trade  ;  but  the 
dwellers  in  slave-huts  and  fugitives  along  the  highways 
thanked  God,  when  you  died,  that  they  had  one  enemy 
the  less.  Wherever  that  terrible  face  turned,  it  carried 
gloom  to  the  bondman.  On  how  many  a  humble  hearth 
did  it  cost  the  loftiest  Christian  principle  to  forbear  calling 
down  curses  on  your  head  ! 

"  And  yet  your  flatterers  tell  us  this  was  the  '  grandest 
growth  of  our  soil  and  institutions !  '  this  the  noblest 
heart  Massachusetts  can  offer  to  the  world  for  a  place 
beside  the  Phocions  and  the  Hampdens,  the  Jays  and  the 
Fayettes  !  Thank  God,  then,  we  are  not  Massachusetts 
men  !  " 

When  I  think  of  the  long  term  and  wide  reach  of  his 
influence,  and  look  at  the  subjects  of  his  speeches, — the 
mere  shells  of  history,  drum-and-trumpet  declamation, 
dry  law,  or  selfish  bickerings  about  trade,  —  when  I 
think  of  his  bartering  the  hopes  of  four  million  of  bondmen 
for  the  chances  of  his  private  ambition,  I  recall  the  criti- 


IDOLS.  261 

cism  on  Lord  Eldon,  —  "  No  man  ever  did  his  race  so 
much  good  as  Eldon  prevented."  Again,  when  I  remem 
ber  the  close  of  his  life  spent  in  ridiculing  the  antislavery 
movement  as  useless  abstraction,  moonshine,  "  mere  rub- 
a-dub  agitation,"  because  it  did  not  minister  to  trade  and 
gain,  methinks  I  seem  to  see  written  all  over  his  statue 
Tocqueville's  conclusion  from  his  survey  of  French  and 
American  Democracy,  —  "  The  man  who  seeks  freedom  for 
anything  but  freedom's  self,  is  made  to  be  a  slave!" 

Monuments,  anniversaries,  statues,  are  schools,  Mr. 
Webster  tells  us,  whose  lessons  sink  deep.  Is  this  man's 
life  a  lesson  which  the  State  can  commend  to  her  sons  9 
Professor  Felton,  as  usual,  embalmed  his  idol  in  a  Greek 
anecdote.  It  is  a  good  storehouse.  Let  us  open  it.  In 
that  great  argument  which  gave  us  the  two  most  consum 
mate  orations  of  antiquity,  the  question  was  whether 
Athens  should  grant  Demosthenes  a  crown.  He  had  fled 
from  battle,  and  his  counsels,  though  heroic,  brought  the 
city  to  ruin.  His  speech  is  the  masterpiece  of  all  elo 
quence.  Of  the  accusation  by  jEschines,  it  is  praise 
enough  to  say  that  it  stands  second  only  to  that.  In  it 
JEschines  warns  the  Athenians  that  in  granting  crowns 
they  judged  themselves,  and  were  forming  the  characters 
of  their  children.  His  noble  burst  — 

To   de   /ieyio-Tov,  tav  enepatTSxriv  vpas  ol  vctorepoi  jrpos  iroiov  X 
,  &c.  — 


is  worth  translating  :  — 

"  Most  of  all,  fellow-citizens,  if  your  sons  ask  whose  example 
they  shall  imitate,  what  will  you  say  ?  For  you  know  well  it  is 
not  music,  nor  the  gymnasium,  nor  the  schools  that  mould  young 
men  ;  it  is  much  more  the  public  proclamations,  the  public  exam 
ple.  If  you  take  one  whose  life  has  no  high  purpose,  one  who 
mocks  at  morals,  and  crown  him  in  the  theatre,  every  boy  who 
sees  it  is  corrupted.  When  a  bad  man  suffers  his  deserts,  the 
people  learn,  —  on  the  contrary,  when  a  man  votes  against  what 
is  noble  and  just,  [how  exactly  he  describes  this  case  !]  and  then 


262  IDOLS. 

comes  home  to  teach  his  son,  the  boy  will  very  properly  say, 
'  Your  lesson  is  impertinent  and  a  bore/  Beware,  therefore, 
Athenians,  remembering  posterity  will  rejudge  your  judgment, 
and  that  the  character  of  a  city  is  determined  by  the  character  of 
the  men  it  crowns." 

I  recommend  this  page  of  jEschines  to  Mr.  Felton. 

Has  the  State,  then,  no  worthier  sons,  that  she  needs 
import  such  poor  material  ?  Within  her  bosom  rests  the 
dust  of  Horace  Mann,  whose  name  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  children  on  Western  prairies,  looking  up  to  Massachu 
setts  teachers,  learn  to  bless.  He  bears  the  sceptre  of 
Massachusetts  influence  to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific. 
When  at  the  head  of  our  Normal  School,  a  colored  girl 
was  admitted,  and  the  narrow  prejudice  of  Newton  closed 
every  door  against  her,  "  Come  to  my  table  ;  let  my 
roof,  then,  be  your  home,"  said  Mr.  Mann.  [Hearty  ap 
plause.]  Antioch  College  staggered  under  $  60,000  debt. 
One,  bearing  the  form  of  a  man,  came  to  its  President,  and 
said,  "  I  will  pay  one  sixth,  if  you  will  promise  me  no  negro 
shall  enter  its  halls."  "  Let  it  perish  first,"  was  Horace 
Mann's  reply.  [Renewed  and  enthusiastic  applause.]  The 
Legislature  are  asked  to  put  his  statue  opposite  Webster's. 
O  no.  When  the  Emperor  makes  his  horse  a  consul, 
honest  men  decline  a  share  in  the  consulship.  While  that 
ill-used  iron  stands  .there,  our  State  is  in  bad  odor  to  offer 
statues  to  anybody. 

At  Reval,  one  of  the  Hanse  towns,  they  will  show  you, 
in  their  treasury,  the  sword  which,  two  hundred  years 
ago,  beheaded  a  lawless  Baron  for  daring  to  carry  off  his 
fugitive  slave  from  the  shelter  of  the  city  walls.  Our 
great  slave-hunter  is  beyond  the  reach  of  man's  sword  ; 
but  if  any  noble  soul  in  the  State  will  stir  our  mother 
Massachusetts  to  behead  his  image,  we  will  cherish  the 
name  of  that  true  Massachusetts  boy  as  sacredly  as  they 
keep  the  brave  old  sword  at  Reval.  [Loud  and  prolonged 
applause.] 


HARPER'S  FERRY.* 


LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN :  Of  course  I  do  not 
expect  —  speaking  from  this  platform,  and  to  you  — 
to  say  anything  on  the  vital  question  of  the  hour  which 
you  have  not  already  heard.  But,  when  a  great  question 
divides  the  community,  all  men  are  called  upon  to  vote, 
and  I  feel  to-night  that  I  am  simply  giving  my  vote.  I  am 
only  saying  "  ditto  "  to  what  you  hear  from  this  platform 
day  after  day.  And  I  would  willingly  have  avoided,  La 
dies  and  Gentlemen,  even  at  this  last  moment,  borrowing 
this  hour  from  you.  I  tried  to  do  better  by  you.  Like 
the  Irishman  in  the  story,  I  offered  to  hold  the  hat  of 
Hon.  Thomas  Corwin  of  Ohio,  [enthusiastic  applause,]  if 
he  would  only  make  a  speech,  and,  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
he  declines,  most  unaccountably,  this  generous  offer. 
[Laughter.]  So  I  must  fulfil  my  appointment,  and  de 
liver  my  lecture  myself. 

"  The  Lesson  of  the  Hour  ?  "  I  think  the  lesson  of 
the  hour  is  insurrection.  [Sensation.]  Insurrection  of 
thought  always  precedes  the  insurrection  of  arms.  The 
last  twenty  years  have  been  an  insurrection  of  thought. 
We  seem  to  be  entering  on  a  new  phase  of  this  great 
American  struggle.  It  seems  to  me  that  we  have  never 

*  A  Lecture  delivered  at  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  Tuesday  Evening,  November 
1,  1859.  Mr.  Phillips  was  advertised  to  speak  on  "The  Lesson  of  the 
Hour,"  in  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  Church.  Hon.  Thomas  Corwin,  with 
others,  was  on  the  platform. 


264  HARPER'S  FERRY. 

accepted,  —  as  Americans,  we  have  never  accepted  our 
own  civilization.  We  have  held  back  from  the  inference 
which  we  ought  to  have  drawn  from  the  admitted  princi 
ples  which  underlie  our  life.  We  have  all  the  timidity  of 
the  Old  World,  when  we  think  of  the  people ;  we  shrink 
back,  trying  to  save  ourselves  from  the  inevitable  might 
of  the  thoughts  of  the  millions.  The  idea  on  the  other 
side  of  the  water  seems  to  be,  that  man  is  created  to  be 
taken  care  of  by  somebody  else.  God  did  not  leave  him 
fit  to  go  alone ;  he  is  in  everlasting  pupilage  to  the 
wealthy  and  the  educated.  The  religious  or  the  comfort 
able  classes  are  an  ever-present  probate  court  to  take  care 
of  him.  The  Old  World,  therefore,  has  always  distrusted 
the  average  conscience,  —  the  common  sense  of  the  mil 
lions. 

jit  seems  to  me  the  idea  of  our  civilization,  underlying 
all  American  life,  is,  that  men  do  not  need  any  guardian. 
We  need  no  safeguard.  Not  only  the  inevitable,  but  the 
best  power  this  side  of  the  ocean,  is  the. unfettered  aver 
age  common  sense  of  the  masses.  Institutions,  as  we  are 
accustomed  to  call  them,  are  but  pasteboard,  and  intended 
to  be,  against  the  thought  of  the  street.  Statutes  are  mere 
milestones,  telling  how  far  yesterday's  thought  had  trav 
elled  ;  and  the  talk  of  the  sidewalk  to-day  is  the  law  of  the 
lajjoT^.  You  may  regret  this ;  but  the  fact  stands ;  and 
if  our  fathers  foresaw  the  full  effect  of  their  principles, 
they  must  have  planned  and  expected  it.  With  us,  Law 
is  nothing  unless  close  behind  it  stands  a  warm,  living 
public  opinion.  Let  that  die  or  grow  indifferent,  and  stat 
utes  are  waste  paper,  lack  all  executive  force.  You  may 
frame  them  strong  as  language  can  make  ;  but  once  change 
public  feeling,  and  through  them  or  over  them  rides  the 
real  wish  of  the  people.  The  good  sense  and  conscience 
of  the  masses  are  our  only  title-deeds  and  police  force^ 
The  Temperance  cause,'  the  antislavery  movement;,  and 


HARPER'S   FERRY.  265 

your  Barnburner  party  prove  this.  You  may  sigh  for  a 
strong  government,  anchored  in  the  convictions  of  past 
centuries,  and  able  to  protect  the  minority  against  the 
majority,  —  able  to  defy  the  ignorance,  the  mistake,  or  the 
passion,  as  well  as  the  high  purpose,  of  the  present  hour ; 
you  may  prefer  the  unchanging  terra  firma  of  despotism  ; 
but  still  the  fact  remains,  that  we  are  launched  on  the 
ocean  of  an  unchained  democracy,  with  no  safety  but  in 
those  laws  of  gravity  which  bind  the  ocean  in  its  bed,  — the 
instinctive  love  of  right  in  the  popular  heart,  —  the  divine 
sheet-anchor,  that  the  race  gravitates  towards  right,  and 
that  the  right  is  always  safe  and  best. 

Somewhat  briefly  stated,  such  is  the  idea  of  American 
civilization  ;  uncompromising  faith  —  in  the  average  self 
ishness,  if  you  choose  —  of  all  classes,  neutralizing  each 
other,  and  tending  towards  that  fair  play  which  Saxons 
love.  But  it  seems  to  me  that,  on  all  questions,  we  dread 
thought ;  we  shrink  behind  something  ;  we  acknowledge 
ourselves  unequal  to  the  sublime  faith  of  our  fathers  ;  and 
the  exhibition  of  the  last  twenty  years  and  of  the  present 
state  of  public  affairs  is,  that  Americans  dread  to  look  their 
real  position  in  the  face. 

They  say  in  Ireland  that  every  Irishman  thinks  he  was 
born  sixty  days  too  late,  [laughter,]  and  that  the  world 
owes  him  sixty  days.  The  consequence  is,  when  a  trader 
says  such  a  thing  is  so  much  for  cash,  the  Irishman  thinks 
cash  means  to  him  a  bill  for  sixty  days.  [Laughter.]  So 
it  is  with  Americans.  They  have  no  idea  of  absolute 
right.  They  were  born  since  1787,  and  absolute  right 
means  the  truth  diluted  by  a  strong  decoction  of  the 
Constitution  of  '89.  They  breathe  that  atmosphere  ;  they 
do  not  want  to  sail  outside  of  it ;  they  do  not  attempt  to 
reason  outside  of  it.  Poisoned  with  printer' s-ink,  or 
choked  with  cotton-dust,  they  stare  at  absolute  right  as 
the  dream  of  madmen.  For  the  last  twenty  years  there 


266  HARPER'S   FERRY. 

has  been  going  on,  more  or  less  heeded  and  understood  in 
different  States,  an  insurrection  of  ideas  against  this  lim 
ited,  cribbed,  cabined,  isolated  American  civilization,  an 
insurrection  to  restore  absolute  right.  If  you  said  to  an 
American,  for  instance,  anything  in  regard  to  temper 
ance,  slavery,  or  anything  else,  in  the  course  of  the  last 
twenty  years,  —  anything  about  a  principle,  —  he  ran  back 
instantly  to  the  safety  of  such  a  principle,  to  the  possibility 
of  its  existing  with  a  particular  sect,  with  a  church,  with  a 
party,  with  a  constitution,  with  a  law.  He  had  not  yet 
raised  himself  to  the  level  of  daring  to  trust  justice,  which 
is  the  preliminary  consideration  to  trusting  the  people ;  for 
whether  native  depravity  be  true  or  not,  it  is  a  truth, 
attested  by  all  history,  that  the  race  gravitates  towards 
justice,  and  that,  making  fair  allowance  for  differences  of 
opinion,  there  is  an  inherent,  essential  tendency  to  the 
great  English  principle  of  fair  play  at  the  bottom  of  our 
natures.  [Loud  applause.]  The  Emperor  Nicholas,  it  is 
said,  ordered  his  engineers  to  lay  down  for  him  a  railway 
from  St.  Petersburg  to  Moscow,  and  presently  the  en 
gineers  brought  him  a  large  piece  of  card-paper,  on  which 
was  laid  down,  like  a  snake,  the  designed  path  for  the  iron 
locomotive  between  the  two  capitals.  "  What 's  that  ?  " 
said  Nicholas.  "  That  's  the  best  road,"  was  the  reply. 
"  What  do  you  make  it  crooked  for  ?  "  "  Why,  we  turn 
this  way  to  touch  this  great  city,  and  to  the  left  to  reach 
that  immense  mass  of  people,  and  to  the  right  again  to 
suit  the  business  of  that  district."  "  Yes."  The  Em 
peror  turned  the  card  over,  made  a  new  dot  for  Mos 
cow,  and  another  for  St.  Petersburg,  took  a  ruler, 
made  a  straight  line,  and  said,  "  Build  me  that  road." 
[Laughter.] 

"But  what  will  become  of  this  depot  of  trade  ?  of 
that  town ? "  "I  don't  know ;  they  must  look  out  for 
themselves."  [Cheers.]  And  intelligent  democracy 


HARPER'S  FERRY.  207 

says  of  slavery,  or  of  a  church,  "  This  is  justice,  and 
that  iniquity ;  the  track  of  God's  thunderbolt  is  a  straight 
line  from  one  to  the  other,  and  the  church  or  state  that 
cannot  stand  it  must  get  out  of  the  way."  [Cheers.] 
Now  our  object  for  twenty  years  has  been  to  educate  the 
mass  of  the  American  people  up  to  that  level  of  moral 
life  which  shall  recognize  that  free  speech  carried  to  this 
extent  is  God's  normal  school,  educating  the  American 
mind,  throwing  upon  it  the  grave  responsibility  of  deciding 
a  great  question,  and  by  means  of  that  responsibility  lift 
ing  it  to  a  higher  level  of  intellectual  and  moral  life. 
Responsibility  educates,  and  politics  is  but  another  name 
for  God's  way  of  teaching  the  masses  ethics,  under  the 
responsibility  of  great  present  interest.  To  educate  man 
is  God's  ultimate  end  and  purpose  in  all  creation.  Trust 
the  people  with  the  gravest. questions,  and  in  the  long  run 
you  educate  the  race  ;  while,  in  the  process,  you  secure, 
not  perfect,  but  the  best  possible  institutions.  Now 
scholarship  stands  on  one  side,  and,  like  your  Brooklyn 
Eagle,  says,  "  This  is  madness  !  "  Well,  poor  man,  he 
thinks  so  !  [Laughter.]  The  very  difficulty  of  the  whole 
matter  is,  that  he  does  think  so,  and  this  normal  school 
that  we  open  is  for  him.  His  seat  is  on  the  lowest  end  of 
the  lowest  bench.  [Laughter  and  applause.]  But  he 
only  represents  that  very  chronic  distrust  which  pervades 
all  that  class,  specially  the  timid  educated  mind  of  these 
Northern  States.  Anacharsis  went  into  the  forum  at 
Athens,  and  heard  a  case  argued  by  the  great  minds  of 
the  day,  and  saw  the  vote.  He  walked  out  into  the 
streets,  and  somebody  said  to  him,  "  What  think  you  of 
Athenian  liberty  ?  "  "I  think,"  said  he,  "  wise  men  ar 
gue  causes,  and  fools  decide  them."  Just  what  the  timid 
scholar  two  thousand  years  ago  said  in  the  streets  of 
Athens,  that  which  calls  itself  the  scholarship  of  the  Unit 
ed  States  says  to-day  of  popular  agitation,  that  it  lets  wise 


268  HARPER'S  FERRY. 

men  argue  questions,  and  fools  decide  them.  But  that 
unruly  Athens,  where  fools  decided  the  gravest  questions 
of  polity  and  right  and  wrong,  where  it  was  not  safe  to 
be  just,  and  where  property,  which  you  had  garnered  u~ 
by  the  thrift  and  industry  of  to-day,  might  be  wrung  from 
you  by  the  caprices  of  the  mob  to-morrow,  —  that  very 
Athens  probably  secured  the  greatest  human  happiness 
and  nobleness  of  its  era,  invented  art,  and  sounded  for  us 
the  depths  of  philosophy :  God  lent  to  it  the  noblest  intel 
lects,  and  it  flashes  to-day  the  torch  that  gilds  yet  the 
mountain-peaks  of  the  Old  World ;  while  Egypt,  the  hun 
ker  conservative  of  antiquity,  where  nobody  dared  to  dif 
fer  from  the  priest,  or  to  be  wiser  than  his  grandfather,  — 
where  men  pretended  to  be  alive,  though  swaddled  in  the 
grave-clothes  of  creed  and  custom  as  close  as  their  mum 
mies  in  linen,  —  is  hid  in  the  tomb  it  inhabited  ;  and  the 
intellect  which  Athens  has  created  for  us  digs  to-day 
those  ashes  to  find  out  what  hunkerism  knew  and  did. 
[Cheers.]  Now  my  idea  of  American  civilization  is,  that 
it  is  a  second  part,  a  repetition  of  that  same  sublime  confi 
dence  ii:  the  public  conscience  and  the  public  thought 
which  made  the  groundwork  of  Grecian  Democracy. 

We  have  been  carrying  on  this  insurrection  of  thought 
for  thirty  years.  There  have  been  various  evidences  of 
growth  in  education :  I  will  tell  you  of  one.  The  first 
evidence  that  a  sinner,  convicted  of  sin,  and  too  blind  or 
too  lazy  to  reform,  the  first  evidence  he  gives  that  his 
nature  has  been  touched,  is,  that  he  becomes  a  hypocrite  ; 
he  has  the  grace  to  pretend  to  be  something.  Now  the  first 
evidence  the  American  people  gave  of  that  commencing 
grace  of  hypocrisy  was  this :  in  1831,  when  we  com 
menced  the  antislavery  agitation,  the  papers  talked  about 
slavery,  bondage,  American  slavery,  boldly,  frankly,  and 
bluntly.  In  a  few  years  it  sounded  hard  ;  it  had  a  grating 
effect ;  the  toughest  throat  of  the  hardest  Democrat  felt  it 


HARPER'S   FERRY.  269 

as  it  came  out.  So  they  spoke  of  the  "  patriarchal  insti 
tution,"  [laughter,]  then  of  the  "  domestic  institution," 
[continued  laughter,]  and  then  of  the  "  peculiar  institu 
tion,"  [laughter,]  and  in  a  year  or  two  it  got  beyond  that. 
Mississippi  published  a  report  from  her  Senate,  in  which 
she  went  a  stride  further,  and  described  it  as  "  economic 
subordination,"  and  baptized  it  by  statute  "  warranteeism." 
[Renewed  laughter.]  A  Southern  Methodist  bishop  was 
taken  to  task  for  holding  slaves  in  reality,  but  his  Metho 
dist  brethren  were  not  courageous  enough  to  say  "  slaves  " 
right  out  in  meeting,  and  so  they  advised  the  bishop  to  get 
rid  of  his  "  impediment "  [loud  laughter]  ;  and  the  late 
Mr.  Rufus  Choate,  in  the  last  Democratic  canvass  of  my 
own  State,  undertaking  and  obliged  to  refer  to  the  institu 
tions  of  the  South,  and  unwilling  that  his  old  New  Eng 
land  lips,  which  had  spoken  so  many  glorious  free  truths, 
should  foul  their  last  days  with  the  hated  word,  phrased  it 
"a  different  type  of  industry."  Now,  hypocrisy  —  why, 
"it  is  the  homage  that  Vice  renders  to  Virtue."  When 
men  begin  to  weary  of  capital  punishment,  they  banish 
the  gallows  inside  the  jail-yard,  and  let  nobody  see  it 
without  a  special  card  of  invitation  from  the  sheriff.  And 
so  they  have  banished  slavery  into  pet  phrases  and  fancy 
flash-words.  If,  one  hundred  years  hence,  you  should  dig 
our  Egyptian  Hunkerism  up  from  the  grave  into  which  it 
is  rapidly  sinking,  we  should  need  a  commentator  of  the 
true  German  blobd  to  find  out  what  all  these  queer,  odd, 
peculiar  imaginative  paraphrases  meant  in  this  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  This  is  one  evidence  of 
progress. 

L  I  believe  in  moral  suasion.  The  age  of  bullets  is  over. 
TJia  age  of  ideas  is  come.  I  think  that  is  the  rule  of  our 
age. \  The  old  Hindoo  dreamed,  you  know,  that  he  saw 
the  human  race  led  out  to  its  varied  fortune.  First,  he 
saw  men  bitted  and  curbed,  and  the  reins  went  back  to  an 


270  HARPER'S   FERRY. 

iron  hand.  But  his  dream  changed  on  and  on,  until  at 
last  he  saw  men  led  by  reins  that  came  from  the  brain, 
and  went  back  into  an  unseen  hand.  It  was  the  type  of 
governments  ;  the  first  despotism,  palpable,  iron  ;  and  the 
last  our  government,  a  government  of  brains,  a  govern 
ment  of  ideas.  I  believe  in  it,  —  in  public  opinion. 

Yet,  let  me  say,  in  passing,  I  think  you  can  make  a  bet 
ter  use  of  iron  than  forging  it  into  chains.  If  you  must 
have  the  metal,  put  it  into  Sharpe's  rifles.  It  is  a  great 
deal  better  used  that  way  than  in  fetters  ;  types  are  better 
than  bullets,  but  bullets  a  thousand  times  rather  than  a 
clumsy  statue  of  a  mock  great  man,  for  hypocrites  to  kneel 
down  and  worship  in  a  State-House  yard.  [Loud  and 
renewed  cheers,  and  great  hissing.]  I  am  so  unused  to 
hisses  lately,  that  I  have  forgotten  what  I  had  to  say. 
[Laughter  and  hisses.]  I  only  know  I  meant  what  I 
did  say. 

My  idea  is,  public  opinion,  literature,  education,  as 
governing  elements. 

/p?ome  men  seem  to  think  that  our  institutions  are  neces 
sarily  safe,  because  we  have  free  schools  and  cheap  books, 
and  a  public  opinion  that  controls.  But  that  is  no  evi 
dence  of  safet£T]  India  and  China  had  schools  for  fifteen 
hundred  years.  And/tyooks,  it  is  said,  were  once  as  cheap 
in  Central  and  Northern  .Asia  as  they  are  in  New  York. 
But  they  have  not  secured  Jliberty,  nor  a  controlling  pub 
lic  opinion  to  either  nation.  ^$pain  for  three  centuries  had 
municipalities  and  town  governments,  as  independent  and 
self-supporting,  and  as  representa^iv/a  of  thought,  as  New 
England  or  New  York  has.  But  tha|jji&  not  save  Spain. 
Tocqueville  says  that,  fifty  years  bejSarre  the  great  rev 
olution,  public  opinion  was  as  omnipotent  in  France  as  it 
is  to-day,  but  it  did  not  make  France  free.  /""Yon  cannot 
save  men  by  machinery^  What  India  andFrance  and 
Spain  wanted  was/\live  men,  tm4~that  is  what  we  want 


HARPER'S  FERRY.  271 

to-day ;  men  who  are  willing  to  look  their  own  destiny, 
and  their  own  responsibilities,  in  the  fa£eTY  "  Grant  me  to 
see,  and  Ajax  asks  no  more,"  was  the— prayer  the  great 
poet  put  into  the  lips  of  his  hero  in  the  darkness  which 
overspread  the  Grecian  camp.  All  we  want  of  American 
citizens  is  the  opening  of  their  own  eyes,  and  seeing  things 
as  they  are.  The  intelligent,  thoughtful,  and  determined 
gaze  of  twenty  millions  of  Christian  people  there  is  noth 
ing,  —  no  institution  wicked  and  powerful  enough  to  be 
capable  of  standing  against  it.  In  Keats's  beautiful  poem 
of  "  Lamia,"  a  young  man  had  been  led  captive  by  a 
phantom  girl,  and  was  the  slave  of  her  beauty,  until  the 
old  teacher  came  in  and  fixed  his  thoughtful  eye  upon  the 
figure,  and  it  vanished. 

You  see  the  great  Commonwealth  of  Virginia  fitly 
represented  by  a  pyramid  standing  upon  its  apex.  A 
Connecticut-born  man  entered  at  one  corner  of  her  do 
minions,  and  fixed  his  cold  gray  eye  upon  the  government 
of  Virginia,  and  it  almost  vanished  in  his  very  gaze.  For 
it  seems  that  Virginia,  for  a  week,  asked  leave  "to  be  " 
of  John  Brown  at  Harper's  Ferry.  [Cheers  and  ap 
plause.]  Connecticut  has  sent  out  many  a  schoolmaster 
to  the  other  thirty  States ;  but  never  before  so  grand  a 
teacher  as  that  Litchfield-born  schoolmaster  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  writing  as  it  were  upon  the  Natural  Bridge,  in  the 
face  of  nations,  his  simple  copy,  —  "Resistance  to  tyrants 
is  obedience  to  God."  [Loud  cheers.] 

I  said  that  the  lesson  of  the  hour  was  insurrection.  I 
ought  not  to  apply  that  word  to  John  Brown  of  Osawa- 
tomie,  for  there  was  no  insurrection  in  his  case.  It  is  a 
great  mistake  to  call  him  an  insurgent.  This  principle 
that  I  have  endeavored  so  briefly  to  open  to  you,  of  ab 
solute  right  and  wrong,  states  what  ?  Just  this  vEfcp.ni- 
mon wealth  of  Virginia !  "  There  is  no  such  thing.  ^Law 
less,  brutal  force  is  no  basis  of  a  governme^fit^n  the  true 


272  HARPER'S  FERRY. 

sense  of  that  wordj  Quce  esl  enim  civitas  ?  asks  Cicero. 
Omnis  ne  conventus  etiam  fezprum  et  immanium  ?  Omnis 
ne  eti&m,  fugitivorum  ac  latrtftgyn  congregata  unum  in 
locum  multitudo  f  CERTE  NEGABIS.  LNo  civil  society,  no 
government,  can  exist  except  on  the  basis  of  the  willing 
submission  of  all  its  citizens,  and  by  the  performance  of 
the  duty  of  rendering  equal  justice  between  man  and  man. 
Whatever  calls  itself  a  government,  and  refuses  that 
duty,  or  has  not  that  assent,  is  no  government^  It  is  only 
a  pirate  ship.  Virginia,  the  Commonwealth  of  Virginia  ! 
She  is  only  a  chronic  insurrection.  I  mean  exactly  what 
I  say.  I  am  weighing  my  words  now.  She  is  a  pirate 
ship,  and  John  Brown  sails  the  sea  a  Lord  High  Admiral 
of  the  Almighty,  with  his  commission  to  sink  every  pirate 
he  meets  on  God's  ocean  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
[Cheers  and  applause.]  I  mean  literally  and  exactly 
what  I  say.  Cii  God's  world  there  are  no  majorities, 
no  minorities ;  one,  on  God's  side,  is  a  majority??  You 
have  often  heard  here,  doubtless,  and  I  need  not  tell  you, 
the  ground  of  morals.  The  rights  of  that  one  man  are  as 
sacred  as  those  of  the  miscalled  Commonwealth  of  Vir 
ginia.  Virginia  is  only  another  Algiers.  The  barbarous 
horde  who  gag  each  other,  imprison  women  for  teaching 
children  to  read,  prohibit  the  Bible,  sell  men  on  the  auc 
tion-block,  abolish  marriage,  condemn  half  their  women  to 
prostitution,  and  devote  themselves  to  the  breeding  of  hu 
man  beings  for  sale,,  is  only  a  larger  and  blacker  Algiers. 
The  only  prayer  of  a  true  man  for  such  is,  "  Gracious 
Heaven  !  unless  they  repent,  send  soon  their  Exmouth 
and  Decatur."  John  Brown  has  twice  as  much  right  to 
hang  Governor  Wise,  as  Governor  Wise  has  to  hang  him. 
[Cheers  and  hisses.]  You  see  I  am  talking  of  that  abso 
lute  essence  of  things  which  lives  in  the  sight  of  the  Eter 
nal  and  the  Infinite  ;  not  as  men  judge  it  in  the  rotten 
morals  of  the  nineteenth  century,  among  a  herd  of  States 


HARPER'S  FERRY.  273 

that  calls  itself  an  empire,  because  it  raises  cotton  and  sells 
slaves.  What  I  say  is  this  :  Harper's  Ferry  was  the  only 
government  in  that  vicinity.  Look  at  the  trial.  Virginia, 
true  to  herself,  has  shown  exactly  the  same  haste  that  the 
pirate  does  when  he  tries  a  man  on  deck,  and  runs  him  up 
to  the  yard-arm.  Unconsciouslj  she  is  consistent.  Now 
you  do  not  think  this  to-day,  some  of  you,  perhaps. 
But  I  tell  you  what  absolute  History  shall  judge  of  these 
forms  and  phantoms  of  ours.  John  Brown  began  his  life, 
his  public  life,  in  Kansas.  The  South  planted  that  seed  ; 
it  reaps  the  first  fruit  now.  Twelve  years  ago,  the  great 
men  in  Washington,  the  Websters  and  the  Clays,  planted 
the  Mexican  war ;  and  they  reaped  their  appropriate  fruit 
in  General  Taylor  and  General  Pierce  pushing  them  from 
their  statesmen's  stools.  The  South  planted  the  seeds  of 
violence  in  Kansas,  and  taught  peaceful  Northern  men 
familiarity  with  the  bowie-knife  and  revolver.  They 
planted  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  seeds,  and  this  is  the 
first  one  that  has  flowered ;  this  is  the  first  drop  of  the 
coming  shower.  People  do  me  the  honor  to  say,  in  some 
of  the  Western  papers,  that  this  is  traceable  to  some 
teachings  of  mine.  It  is  too  much  honor  to  such  as  me. 
Gladly,  if  it  were  not  fulsome  vanity,  would  I  clutch  this 
laurel  of  having  any  share  in  the  great  resolute  daring  of 
that  man  who  flung  himself  against  an  empire  in  behalf  of 
justice  and  liberty.  They  were  not  the  bravest  men  who 
Fought  at  Saratoga  and  Yorktown,  in  the  war  of  1776.  O 
no !  it  was  rather  those  who  flung  themselves  at  Lexing 
ton,  few  and  feeble,  against  the  embattled  ranks  of  an 
empire,  till  then  thought  irresistible.  Elderly  men,  in 
powdered  wigs  and  red  velvet,  smoothed  their  ruffles,  and 
cried,  "  Madmen  I  "  Full-fed  custom-house  clerks  said, 
"  A  pistol-shot  against  Gibraltar  !  "  But  Captain  Ingra- 
ham,  under  the  stars  and  stripes,  dictating  terms  to  the 
fleet  of  the  Caesars,  was  only  the  echo  of  that  Lexington 

18 


274  HARPER'S  FERRY. 

gun.  \Harper's  Ferry  is  the  Lexington  of  to-day .1  Up  to 
this  moment,  Brown's  life  has  been  one  unmixea  success. 
Prudence,  skill,  courage,  thrift,  knowledge  of  his  time, 
knowledge  of  his  opponents,  undaunted  daring,  —  he  had 
all  these.  He  was  the  man  who  could  leave  Kansas,  and 
go  into  Missouri,  and  take  eleven  men,  give  them  lib 
erty,  and  bring  them  off  on  the  horses  which  he  carried 
with  him,  and  two  which  he  took  as  tribute  from  their 
masters  in  order  to  facilitate  escape.  Then,  when  he  had 
passed  his  human  proteges  from  the  vulture  of  the  United 
States  to  the  safe  shelter  of  the  English  lion,  this  is  the 
brave,  frank,  and  sublime  truster  in  God's  right  and  abso 
lute  justice,  who  entered  his  name  in  the  city  of  Cleveland, 
"  John  Brown,  of  Kansas,"  advertised  there  two  horses 
for  sale,  and  stood  in  front  of  the  auctioneer's  stand,  noti 
fying  all  bidders  of —  what  some  would  think  —  the  defect 
in  the  title.  [Laughter.]  But  he  added,  with  noncha 
lance,  when  he  told  me  the  story,  "  They  brought  a  very 
excellent  price."  [Laughter.]  This  is  the  man  who,  in 
the  face  of  the  nation,  avowing  his  right,  and  laboring  with 
what  strength  he  had  in  behalf  of  the  wronged,  goes  down 
to  Harper's  Ferry  to  follow  up  his  work.  Well,  men  say 
he  failed.  Every  man  has  his  Moscow.  Suppose  he  did 
fail,  every  man  meets  his  Waterloo  at  last.  There  are 
two  kinds  of  defeat.  Whether  in  chains  or  in  laurels, 
LIBERTY  knows  nothing  but  victories.  Soldiers  call  Bun 
ker  Hill  a  defeat ;  but  Liberty  dates  from  it,  though  War 
ren  lay  dead  on  the  field.  Men  say  the  attempt  did  not 
succeed.  No  man  can  command  success.  Whether  it 
was  well  planned,  and  deserved  to  succeed,  we  shall  be 
able  to  decide  when  Brown  is  free  to  tell  us  ah1  he  knows. 
Suppose  he  did  fail,  in  one  sense,  he  has  done  a  great  deal 
still.  Why,  this  is  a  decent  country  to  live  in  now. 
[Laughter  and  cheers.]  Actually,  in  this  Sodom  of  ours, 
twenty-two  men  have  been  found  ready  to  die  for  an  idea. 


HARPER'S   FERRY. 

God  be  thanked  for  John  Brown,  that  he  has  discovered 
or  created  them !  [Cheers.]  I  should  feel  some  pride, 
if  I  was  in  Europe  now,  in  confessing  that  I  was  an 
American.  [Applause.]  We  have  redeemed  the  long 
infamy  of  sixty  years  of  subservience.  But  look  back  a 
bit.  Is  there  anything  new  about  this  ?  Nothing  at  all, 
It  is  the  natural  result  of  antislavery  teaching.  For  one, 
I  accept  it ;  I  hoped  for  it.  I  cannot  say  that  I  prayed 
for  it ;  I  cannot  say  that  I  expected  it.  But  at  the  same 
time,  no  sane  man  has  looked  upon  this  matter  for  twenty 
years,  and  supposed  that  we  could  go  through  this  great 
moral  convulsion,  the  great  classes  of  society  crashing  and 
jostling  against  each  other  like  frigates  in  a  storm,  and 
that  there  would  not  come  such  scenes  as  these. 

In  1835  it  was  the  other  way.  Then  it  was  my  bull 
that  gored  your  ox.  Then  ideas  came  in  conflict,  and 
men  of  violence,  men  who  trusted  in  their  own  right 
hands,  men  who  believed  in  bowie-knives,  —  such  sacked 
the  city  of  Philadelphia ;  such  made  New  York  to  be  gov 
erned  by  a  mob ;  Boston  saw  its  mayor  suppliant  and 
kneeling  to  the  chief  of  a  broadcloth  mob  in  broad  day 
light.  It  was  all  on  that  side.  The  natural  result,  the 
first  result  of  this  starting  of  ideas,  is  like  people  who  get 
half  awaked,  and  use  the  first  weapons  that  lie  at  hand* 
The  first  show  and  unfolding  of  national  life  were  the  mobs 
of  1835.  People  said  it  served  us  right ;  we  had  no  right 
to  the  luxury  of  speaking  our  own  minds ;  it  was  too  ex 
pensive  ;  these  lavish,  prodigal,  luxurious  persons  walking 
about  here,  and  actually  saying  what  they  think.  Why 
it  was  like  speaking  loud  in  the  midst  of  the  avalanches. 
To  say  "Liberty"  in  a  loud  tone,  the  Constitution  of 
1789  might  come  down,  —  it  would  not  do.  But  now 
things  have  changed.  We  have  been  talking  thirty  years. 
Twenty  years  we  have  talked  everywhere,  under  all  cir 
cumstances  ;  we  have  been  mobbed  out  of  great  cities, 


276  HARPER'S  FERRY. 

and  pelted  out  of  little  ones;  we  have  been  abused  by 
great  men  and  by  little  papers.  [Laughter  and  applause.] 
What  is  the  result  ?  The  tables  have  been  turned ;  it  is 
your  bull  that  has  gored  my  ox  now.  And  men  who  still 
believe  in  violence,  the  five  points  of  whose  faith  are  the 
fist,  the  bowie-knife,  fire,  poison,  and  the  pistol,  are  ranged 
on  the  side  of  Liberty,  and,  unwilling  to  wait  for  the  slow 
but  sure  steps  of  thought,  lay  on  God's  altar  the  best  they 
have.  You  cannot  expect  to  put  a  real  Puritan  Presby 
terian,  as  John  Brown  is,  —  a  regular  Cromwellian  dug 
up  from  two  centuries,  —  in  the  midst  of  our  New  England 
civilization,  that  dares  not  say  its  soul  is  its  own,  nor  pro 
claim  that  it  is  wrong  to  sell  a  man  at  auction,  and  not 
have  him  show  himself  as  he  is.  Put  a  hound  in  the 
presence  of  a  deer,  and  he  springs  at  his  throat  if  he  is  a 
true  bloodhound.  Put  a  Christian  in  the  presence  of  a 
sin,  and  he  will  spring  at  its  throat  if  he  is  a  true  Chris 
tian.  Into  an  acid  we  may  throw  white  matter,  but  unless 
it  is  chalk,  it  will  not  produce  agitation.  So  if  in  a  world 
of  sinners  you  were  to  put  American  Christianity,  it  would 
be  calm  as  oil.  But  put  one  Christian,  like  John  Brown 
of  Osawatomie,  and  he  makes  the  whole  crystallize  into 
right  and  wrong,  and  marshal  themselves  on  one  side  or 
the  other.  God  makes  him  the  text,  and  all  he  asks  of 
our  comparatively  cowardly  lips  is  to  preach  the  sermon, 
and  say  to  the  American  people  that,  whether  that  old 
man  succeeded  in  a  worldly  sense  or  not,  he  stood  a  rep 
resentative  of  law,  of  government,  of  right,  of  justice,  of 
religion,  and  they  were  a  mob  of  murderers  who  gathered 
about  him,  and  sought  to  wreak  vengeance  by  taking  his 
life.  The  banks  of  the  Potomac,  doubly  dear  now  to 
history  and  to  man  !  The  dust  of  Washington  rests 
there  ;  and  history  will  see  forever  on  that  river-side  the 
brave  old  man  on  his  pallet,  whose  dust,  when  God  calls 
him  hence,  the  Father  of  his  Country  would  be  proud  to 


HARPER'S  FERRY.  277 

make  room  for  beside  his  own.  But  if  Virginia  tyrants 
dare  hang  him,  after  this  mockery  of  a  trial,  it  will  take  two 
more  Washingtons  at  least  to  make  the  name  of  the  State 
anything  but  abominable  in  time  to  come.  [Applause  and 
hisses.]  Well,  I  say  what  I  really  think.  [Cheers,  and 
cries  of  "  Good!  good  !  "]  George  Washington  was  a  great 
man.  Yet  I  say  what  I  really  think.  And  I  know,  Ladies 
and  Gentlemen,  that,  educated  as  you  have  been  by  the 
experience  of  the  last  ten  years  here,  you  would  have 
thought  me  the  silliest  as  well  as  the  most  cowardly  man 
in  the  world,  if  I  should  have  come,  with  my  twenty 
years  behind  me,  and  talked  about  anything  else  to-night 
except  that  great  example  which  one  man  has  set  us  on 
the  banks  of  the  Potomac.  You  expected,  of  course,  that 
I  should  tell  you  my  real  opinion  of  it. 

I  value  this  element  that  Brown  has  introduced  into 
American  politics.  The  South  is  a  great  power,  —  no 
cowards  in  Virginia.  [Laughter.]  It  was  not  cowardice. 
[Laughter.]  Now,  I  try  to  speak  very  plain,  but  you 
will  misunderstand  me.  There  is  no  cowardice  in  Vir 
ginia.  The  South  are  not  cowards.  The  lunatics  in  the 
Gospel  were  not  cowards  when  they  said,  "Art  thou 
come  to  torment  us  before  the  time?"  [Laughter.] 
They  were  brave  enough,  but  they  saw  afar  off.  They 
saw  the  tremendous  power  which  was  entering  into  that 
charmed  circle ;  they  knew  its  inevitable  victory.  Virginia 
did  not  tremble  at  an  old  gray-headed  man  at  Harper's 
Ferry ;  they  trembled  at  a  John  Brown  in  every  man's 
own  conscience.  He  had  been  there  many  years,  and, 
like  that  terrific  scene  which  Beckford  has  drawn  for  us  in 
his  Hall  of  Eblis,  where  the  crowd  runs  around,  each  man 
with  an  incurable  wound  in  his  bosom,  and  agrees  not  to 
speak  of  it ;  so  the  South  has  been  running  up  and  down 
its  political  and  social  life,  and  every  man  keeps  his  right 
hand  pressed  on  the  secret  and  incurable  sore,  with  an 


278  HARPER'S   FERRY. 

understood  agreement,  in  church  and  state,  that  it  never 
shall  be  mentioned,  for  fear  the  great  ghastly  fabric  should 
come  to  pieces  at  the  talismanic  word.  Brown  uttered  it ; 
cried,  "Slavery  is  sin!  come,  all  true  men,  help  pull  it 
down,"  and  the  whole  machinery  trembled  to  its  very 
base. 

I  value  this  movement  for  another  reason.  Did  you 
ever  see  a  blacksmith  shoe  a  restless  horse  ?  If  you  have, 
you  have  seen  him  take  a  small  cord  and  tie  the  upper  lip. 
Ask  him  what  he  does  it  for,  he  will  tell  you  to  give  the 
beast  something  to  think  of.  [Laughter.]  Now,  the 
South  has  extensive  schemes.  She  grasps  with  one  hand 
a  Mexico,  and  with  the  other  she  dictates  terms  to  the 
Church,  she  imposes  conditions  on  the  state,  she  buys  up 
Webster  with  a  little  or  a  promise,  and  Everett  with  noth 
ing.  [Great  laughter  and  applause.]  John  Brown  has 
given  her  something  else  to  think  of.  He  has  turned  her 
attention  inwardly.  He  has  taught  her  that  there  has 
been  created  a  new  element  in  this  Northern  mind ;  that 
it  is  not  merely  the  thinker,  that  it  is  not  merely  the 
editor,  that  it  is  not  merely  the  moral  reformer,  but  the 
idea  has  pervaded  all  classes  of  society.  Call  them  mad 
men  if  you  will.  Hard  to  tell  who  *s  mad.  The  world 
says  one  man  is  mad.  John  Brown  said  the  same  of  the 
Governor.  You  remember  the  madman  in  Edinburgh. 
A  friend  asked  him  what  he  was  there  for.  "Well," 
cried  he,  "  they  said  at  home  that  I  was  mad ;  and  I  said 
I  was  not;  but  they  had  the  majority."  [Laughter.] 
Just  so  it  is  in  regard  to  John  Brown.  The  nation  says 
he  is  mad.  I  appeal  from  Philip  drunk  to  Philip  sober ;  I 
appeal  from  the  American  people,  drunk  with  cotton,  and 
the  New  York  Observer,  [loud  and  long  laughter,]  to  the 
American  people  fifty  years  hence,  when  the  light  of  civ 
ilization  has  had  more  time  to  penetrate,  when  self-interest 
has  been  rebuked  by  the  world  rising  and  giving  its  ver« 


HARPER'S   FERRY.  279 

diet  on  these  great  questions,  when  it  is  not  a  small  band 
of  Abolitionists,  but  the  civilization  of  the  twentieth  cen 
tury,  in  all  its  varied  forms,  interests,  and  elements,  which 
undertakes  to  enter  the  arena,  and  discuss  this  last  great 
reform.  When  that  day  comes,  what  will  be  thought  of 
these  first  martyrs,  who  teach  us  how  to  live  and  how 
to  die  ? 

jjjas  the  slave  a  light  to  resist  his  master  ?  I  will  not 
argue  that  question  to  a  people  hoarse  with  shouting  ever 
since  July  4,  1776,  that  all  men  are  created  equal,  that 
the  right  to  liberty  is  inalienable,  and  that  "  resistance  to 
tyrants  is  obedience  to  God."  But  may  he  resist  to  blood 
—  with  rifles  ?  What  need  of  proving  that  to  a  people 
who  load  down  Bunker  Hill  with  granite^and  crowd  their 
public  squares  with  images  of  Washington/  ay,  worship 
the  sword  so  blindly  that,  leaving  their~omest  statesmen 
idle,  they  go  down  to  the  bloodiest  battle-field  in  Mexico 
to  drag  out  a  President?  But  may  one  help  the  slave 
resist,  as  Brown  did  ?  Ask  Byron  on  his  death-bed  in  the 
marshes  of  Missolonghi.  Ask  the  Hudson  as  its  waters 
kiss  your  shore,  what  answer  they  bring  from  the  grave 
of  Kosciusko.  I  hide  the  Connecticut  Puritan  behind 
Lafayette,  bleeding  at  Brandywine,  in  behalf  of  a  nation 
his  rightful  king  forbade  him  to  visit. 

But  John  Brown  violated  the  law.  Yes.  On  yonder 
desk  lie  the  inspired  words  of  men  who  died  violent  deaths 
for  breaking  the  laws  of  Rome.  Why  do  you  listen  to 
them  so  reverently  ?  Huss  and  Wickliffe  violated  laws  ; 
why  honor  them  ?  George  Washington,  had  he  been 
caught  before  1783,  would  have  died  on  the  gibbet,  for 
breaking  the  laws  of  his  sovereign.  Yet  I  have  heard 
that  man  praised  within  six  months.  Yes,  you  say,  but 
these  men  broke  bad  laws.  Just  so.  ^TtTis  honorable,  then, 
to  break  bad  laws,  and  such  law-breaking  history  loves 
and  God  blessesT\  Who  says,  then,  that  slave  laws  are 


280  HARPER'S  FERRY. 

not  ten  thousand  times  worse  than  any  those  men  resisted? 
Whatever  argument  excuses  them,  makes  Jehu  Brown  a 
saint. 

Suppose  John  Brown  had  not  stayed  at  Harper's  Ferry. 
Suppose  on  that  momentous  Monday  night,  when  the 
excited  imaginations  of  two  thousand  Charlestown  people 
had  enlarged  him  and  his  little  band  into  four  hundred 
white  men  and  two  hundred  blacks,  he  had  vanished,  and 
when  t>e  gallant  troops  arrived  there,  two  thousand  strong, 
they  had  found  nobody  !  The  mountains  would  have  been 
peopled  with  enemies  ;  the  Alleghanies  would  have  heaved 
with  insurrection  !  You  never  would  have  convinced 
Virginia  that  all  Pennsylvania  was  not  armed  and  on  the 
hills.  Suppose  Massachusetts,  free  Massachusetts,  had  not 
given  the  world  the  telegraph,  to  flash  news  like  sunlight 
over  half  the  globe.  Then  Tuesday  would  have  rolled 
away,  while  slow  spreading  through  dazed  Virginia  crawled 
the  news  of  this  event.  Meanwhile,  a  hundred  men  having 
rallied  to  Brown's  side,  he  might  have  marched  across  the 
quaking  State  to  Richmond  and  pardoned  Governor  Wise. 
Nat  Turner's  success,  in  1831,  shows  this  would  have  been 
possible.  Free  thought,  mother  of  invention,  not  Virginia, 
baffled  Brown.  But  free  thought,  in  the  long  run,  stran 
gles  tyrants.  Virginia  has  not  slept  sound  since  Nat 
Turner  led  an  insurrection  in  1831,  and  she  bids  fair 
never  to  have  a  nap  now.  [Laughter.]  For  this  is  not 
an  insurrection ;  this  is  the  penetration  of  a  different 
element.  Mark  you,  it  is  not  the  oppressed  race  rising. 
Recollect  history.  There  never  was  a  race  held  in  actual 
chains  that  vindicated  its  own  liberty  but  one.  There 
never  was  a  serf  nor  a  slave  whose  own  sword  cut  off  his 
own  chain  but  one.  Blue-eyed,  light-haired  Anglo-Saxon, 
it  was  not  our  race.  We  were  serfs  for  three  centuries, 
and  we  waited  till  commerce  and  Christianity  and  a  differ 
ent  law  had  melted  our  fetters.  We  were  crowded  down 


HARPER'S   FERRY.  281 

into  a  vrjanage  which  crushed  out  our,  manhood  so  thor 
oughly  that  we  had  not  vigor  enough  left  to  redeem 
ourselves.  Neither  France  nor  Spain,  neither  the  North 
ern  nor  the  Southern  races  of  Europe  have  that  bright  spot 
on  their  escutcheon,  that  they  put  an  end  to  their  own 
slavery.  Blue-eyed,  haughty,  contemptuous  Anglo-Sax 
ons,  it  was  the  black,  —  the  only  race  in  the  record  of  his 
tory  that  ever,  after  a  century  of  oppression,  retained  the 
vigor  to  write  the  charter  of  its  emancipation  with  its  own 
hand  in  the  blood  of  the  dominant  race.  Despised,  calum 
niated,  slandered  San  Domingo  is  the  only  instance  in 
history  where  a  race,  with  indestructible  love  of  liberty, 
after  bearing  a  hundred  years  of  oppression,  rose  up  under 
their  own  leader,  and  with  their  own  hands  wrested  chains 
from  their  own  limbs.  Wait,  garrulous,  ignorant,  boast 
ing  Saxon,  till  you  have  done  half  as  much,  before  you 
talk  of  the  cowardice  of  the  black  race  I 

The  slaves  of  our  country  have  not  risen,  but,  as  in 
most  other  cases,  redemption  will  come  from  the  inter 
ference  of  a  wiser,  higher,  more  advanced  civilization  on 
its  exterior.  It  is  the  almost  universal  record  of  history, 
and  ours  is  a  repetition  of  the  same  drama.  We  have 
awakened  at  last  the  enthusiasm  of  both  classes,  —  those 
that  act  from  impulse  and  those  that  act  from  calculation. 
It  is  a  libel  on  the  Yankee  to  think  that  it  includes  the 
whole  race,  when  you  say  that  if  you  put  a  dollar  on  the 
other  side  of  hell,  the  Yankee  will  spring  for  it  at  any  risk 
[laughter]  ;  for  there  is  an  element  even  in  the  Yankee 
blood  which  obeys  ideas  ;  there  is  an  impulsive,  enthusiastic 
aspiration,  something  left  to  us  from  the  old  Puritan  stock ; 
that  which  made  England  what  she  was  two  centuries  ago  ; 
that  which  is  fated  to  give  the  closest  grapple  with  the 
Slave  Power  to-day.  This  is  an  invasion  by  outside 
power.  Civilization  in  1600  crept  along  our  shores,  now 
planting  her  foot,  and  then  retreating ;  now  gaining  a  foot- 


282  HARPER'S   FERRY, 

hold,  and  then  receding  before  barbarism,  till  at  last  came 
Jamestown  and  Plymouth,  and  then  thirty  States.  Har 
per's  Ferry  is  perhaps  one  of  Raleigh's  or  Gosnold's 
colonies,  vanishing  and  to  be  swept  away ;  by  and  by  will 
come  the  immortal  one  hundred,  and  Plymouth  Rock, 
with  "  MANIFEST  DESTINY  "  written  by  God's  hand  on 
their  banner,  and  the  right  of  unlimited  "  ANNEXATION  " 
granted  by  Heaven  itself. 

It  is  the  lesson  of  the  age.  The  first  cropping  out  of  it 
is  in  such  a  man  as  John  Brown.  Grant  that  he  did  not 
measure  his  means;  that  he  was  not  thrifty  as  to  his 
method  ;  he  did  not  calculate  closely  enough,  and  he  was 
defeated..  What  is  defeat?  Nothing  but  education, — 
nothing  but  the  first  step  to  something  better.  All  that  is 
wanted  is,  that  our  public  opinion  shall  not  creep  round 
like  a  servile,  coward,  corrupt,  disordered,  insane  public 
opinion,  and  proclaim  that  Governor  Wise,  because  he 
says  he  is  a  governor,  is  a  governor ;  that  Virginia  is  a 
State,  because  she  says  she  is  so. 

Thank  God,  I  am  not  a  citizen.  You  will  remember, 
all  of  you,  citizens  of  the  United  States,  that  there  was  not 
a  Virginia  gun  fired  at  John  Brown.  Hundreds  of  well- 
armed  Maryland  and  Virginia  troops  rushed  to  Harper's 
Ferry,  and  —  went  away  !  You  shot  him  !  Sixteen  ma 
rines,  to  whom  you  pay  eight  dollars  a  month,  —  your 
own  representatives.  When  the  disturbed  State  could  not 
stand  on  her  own  legs  for  trembling,  you  went  there  and 
strengthened  the  feeble  knees,  and  held  up  the  palsied 
hands.  Sixteen  men,  with  the  vulture  of  the  Union  above 
them,  [sensation,]  your  representatives  !  It  was  the  cov 
enant  with  death  and  agreement  with  hell,  which  you  call 
the  Union  of  thirty  States,  that  took  the  old  man  by  the 
throat  with  a  pirate  hand ;  and  it  will  be  the  disgrace  of 
our  civilization  if  a  gallows  is  ever  erected  in  Virginia  that 
bears  his  body.  "  The  most  resolute  man  I  ever  saw," 


HARPER'S   FERRY.  283 

says  Governor  Wise,  "  the  most  daring,  the  coolest.  I 
would  trust  his  truth  about  any  question.  The  sincerest !  " 
Sincerity,  courage,  resolute  daring,  beating  in  a  heart  that 
feared  God,  and  dared  all  to  help  his  brother  to  liberty,  — 
Virginia  has  nothing,  nothing  for  those  qualities  but  a 
scaffold !  [Applause.]  In  her  broad  dominion  she  can 
only  afford  him  six  feet  for  a  grave  !  God  help  the  Com 
monwealth  which  bids  such  welcome  to  the  noblest  qualities 
that  can  grace  poor  human  nature  !  Yet  that  is  the  acknowl 
edgment  of  Governor  Wise  himself!  I  will  not  dignify 
such  a  horde  with  the  name  of  a  despotism ;  since  despot 
ism  is  sometimes  magnanimous.  Witness  Russia,  covering 
Schamyl  with  generous  protection.  Compare  that  with 
mad  Virginia,  hurrying  forward  this  ghastly  trial. 

They  say  it  cost  the  officers  and  persons  in  responsible 
positions  more  effort  to  keep  hundreds  of  startled  soldiers 
from  shooting  the  five  prisoners  sixteen  marines  had  made, 
than  it  cost  those  marines  to  take  the  armory  itself.  Sol 
diers  and  civilians,  —  both  alike,  —  only  a  mob  fancying 
itself  a  government !  And  mark  you,  I  have  said  they 
were  not  a  government.  They  not  only  are  not  a  govern 
ment,  but  they  have  not  even  the  remotest  idea  of  what  a 
government  is.  [Laughter.]  They  do  not  begin  to  have 
the  faintest  conception  of  what  a  civilized  government  is. 
Here  is  a  man  arraigned  before  a  jury,  or  about  to  be. 
The  State  of  Virginia,  as  she  calls  herself,  is  about  to  try 
him.  The  first  step  in  that  trial  is  a  jury ;  the  second  is  a 
judge  ;  and  at  the  head  stands  the  Chief  Executive  of  the 
State,  who  holds  the  power  to  pardon  murder;  and  yet 
that  very  Executive,  who, 'according  to  the  principles  of 
the  sublimest  chapter  in  Algernon  Sidney's  immortal  book, 
is  bound  by  the  very  responsibility  which  rests  on  him 
to  keep  his  mind  impartial  as  to  the  guilt  of  any  person 
arraigned,  hastens  down  to  Richmond,  hurries  to  the  plat 
form,  and  proclaims  to  the  assembled  Commonwealth  of 


284  HARPER'S  FERRY. 

Virginia,  "  The  man  is  a  murderer,  and  ought  to  be  hung." 
Almost  every  lip  in  the  State  might  have  said  it  except 
that  single  lip  of  its  Governor ;  and  the  moment  he  had 
uttered  these  words,  in  the  theory  of  the  English  law,  it 
was  not  possible  to  impanel  an  impartial  jury  in  the  Com 
monwealth  of  Virginia;  it  was  not  possible  to  get  the 
materials  and  the  machinery  to  try  him,  according  to  even 
the  ugliest  pattern  of  English  jurisprudence.  And  yet  the 
Governor  does  not  know  that  he  has  written  himself  down 
non  compos,  and  the  Commonwealth  that  he  governs  sup 
poses  itself  still  a  Christian  polity.  They  have  not  the 
faintest  conception  of  what  goes  to  make  up  a  government. 
The  worst  Jeffries  that  ever,  in  his  most  drunken  hour, 
climbed  up  a  lamp-post  in  the  streets  of  London,  would 
not  have  tried  a  man  who  could  not  stand  on  his  feet. 
There  is  no  such  record  in  the  blackest  roll  of  tyranny. 
If  Jeffries  could  speak,  he  would  thank  God  that  at  last 
his  name  might  be*  taken  down  from  the  gibbet  of  History, 
since  the  Virginia  bench  has  made  his  worst  act  white, 
set  against  the  blackness  of  this  modern  infamy.  [Ap 
plause.]  And  yet  the  New  York  press  daily  prints  the 
accounts  of  the  trial.  Trial !  In  the  names  of  Holt  and 
Somers,  of  Hale  and  Erskine,  of  Parsons,  Marshall,  and 
Jay,  I  protest  against  the  name.  Trial  for  life,  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  dialect,  has  a  proud,  historic  meaning.  It  includes 
indictment  by  impartial  peers ;  a  copy  of  such  indictment 
and  a  list  of  witnesses  furnished  the  prisoner,  with  ample 
time  to  scrutinize  both ;  liberty  to  choose,  and  time  to 
get  counsel ;  a  sound  body  and  a  sound  mind  to  arrange 
one's  defence  ;  I  need  not  add,  a  judge  and  jury  impartial 
as  the  lot  of  humanity  will  admit ;  honored  bulwarks  and 
safeguards,  each  one  the  trophy  and  result  of  a  century's 
struggle.  Wounded,  fevered,  lying  half  unconscious  on 
his  pallet,  unable  to  stand  on  his  feet,  the  trial  half  finished 
before  his  first  request  for  aid  had  reached  his  friends,  — 


HARPER'S  FERRY.  285 

no  list  of  witnesses  or  knowledge  of  them  till  the  crier, 
calling  the  name  of  some  assassin  of  his  comrades,  wakes 
him  to  consciousness ;  the  judge  a  tool,  and  the  prosecutor 
seeking  popularity  by  pandering  to  the  mob  ;  no  decent 
form  observed,  and  the  essence  of  a  fair  trial  wholly  want 
ing,  our  history  and  law  alike  protest  against  degrading 
the  honored  name  of  Jury  Trial  by  lending  it  to  such  an 
outrage  as  this.  The  Inquisition  used  to  break  every 
other  bone  in  a  man's  body,  and  then  lay  him  on  a  pallet, 
giving  him  neither  counsel  nor  opportunity  to  consult  one, 
and  wring  from  his  tortured  mouth  something  like  a  con 
fession,  and  call  it  a  trial.  But  it  was  heaven-robed  inno 
cence  compared  with  the  trial,  or  what  the  New  York  press 
call  so,  that  has  been  going  on  in  crazed  and  maddened 
Charlestown. 

I  wish  I  could  say  anything  worthy  of  the  great  deed 
which  has  taken  place  in  our  day,  —  the  opening  of  the 
sixth  seal,  the  pouring  out  of  the  last  vial  but  one  on  a 
corrupt  and  giant  institution.  I  know  that  many  men  will 
deem  me  a  fanatic  for  uttering  this  wholesale  vituperation, 
as  it  will  be  called,  upon  a  State,  and  this  indorsement  of 
a  madman.  I  can  only  say  that  I  have  spoken  on  this 
antislavery  question  before  the  American  people  thirty 
years  ;  that  I  have  seen  the  day  when  this  same  phase  of 
popular  feeling  —  rifles  and  force  —  was  on  the  other  side. 
You  remember  the  first  time  I  was  ever  privileged  to 
stand  on  this  platform  by  the  magnanimous  generosity  of 
your  clergyman,  when  New  York  was  about  to  bully  and 
crush  out  the  freedom  of  speech  at  the  dictation  of  Cap 
tain  Rynders.  From  that  day  to  this,  the  same  braving 
of  public  thought  has  been  going  on  from  here  to  Kansas, 
until  it  bloomed  in  the  events  of  the  last  three  years.  It 
has  changed  the  whole  face  of  the  sentiment  in  these 
Northern  States.  You  meet  with  the  evidence  of  it 
everywhere.  When  the  first  news  from  Harper's  Ferry 


286  HARPER'S  FERRY. 

came  to  Massachusetts,  if  you  were  riding  in  the  cars,  if 
you  were  walking  in  the  streets,  if  you  met  a  Democrat 
or  a  Whig  or  a  Republican,  no  matter  what  his  politics,  it 
was  a  singular  circumstance  that  he  did  not  speak  of  the 
guilt  of  Brown,  of  the  atrocity  of  the  deed,  as  you  might 
have  expected.  The  first  impulsive  expression,  the  first 
outbreak  of  every  man's  words  was,  "  What  a  pity  he  did 
not  succeed  !  [Laughter.]  What  a  fool  he  was  for  not 
going  off  Monday,  when  he  had  all  he  wanted  !  How 
strange  that  he  did  not  take  his  victory,  and  march  away 
with  it !  "  It  indicated  the  unconscious  leavening  of  a 
sympathy  with  the  attempt.  Days  followed  on ;  they 
commenced  what  they  called  their  trial ;  you  met  the 
same  classes  again  ;  no  man  said  he  ought  to  be  hung  ;  no 
man  said  he  was  guilty ;  no  man  predicated  anything  of 
his  moral  position  ;  every  man  voluntarily  and  inevitably 
seemed,  to  give  vent  to  his  indignation  at  the  farce  of  a 
trial,  indicative  again  of  that  unheeded,  potent,  uncon 
scious,  but  wide-spread  sympathy  on  the  side  of  Brown. 
Do  you  suppose  that  these  things  mean  nothing  ?  What 
the  tender  and  poetic  youth,  as  Emerson  says,  dreams  to 
day,  and  conjures  up  with  inarticulate  speech,  is  to-morrow 
the  vociferated  result  of  public  opinion,  and  the  day  after 
is  the  charter  of  nations.  The  American  people  have 
begun  to  feel.  The  mute  eloquence,  of  the  fugitive  slave 
has  gone  up  and  down  the  highways  and  byways  of  the 
country  ;  it  will  annex  itself  to  the  great  American  heart 
of  the  North,  even  in  the  most  fossil  state  of  its  hunkerism, 
as  a  latent  sympathy  with  its  right  side.  This  blow,  like 
the  first  gun  at  Lexington,  "  heard  around  the  world,"  — 
this  blow  at  Harper's  Ferry  reveals  men.  Watch  those 
about  you,  and  you  will  see  more  of  the  temper  and  un 
conscious  purpose  and  real  moral  position  of  men  than  you 
would  imagine.  This  is  the  way  nations  are  to  be  judged. 
Be  not  in  a  hurry  ;  action  will  come  soon  enough  from 


HARPER'S   FERRY.  287 

this  sentiment.  We  stereotype  feeling  into  intellect,  and 
then  into  statutes,  and  finally  into  national  character.  We 
have  now  the  first  stage  of  growth.  Nature  s  live  growths 
crowd  out  and  rive  dead  matter.  Ideas  strangle  statutes. 
Pulse-beats  wear  down  granite,  whether  piled  in  jails  or 
capitols.  The  people's  hearts  are  the  only  title-deeds,  after 
all.  Your  Barnburners  said,  "  Patroon  titles  are  un 
righteous."  Judges  replied,  "  Sucli  is  the  law."  Wealth 
shrieked,  "  Vested  rights  !  "  Parties  talked  of  Constitu 
tions  ;  still,  the  people  said,  "  Sin."  They  shot  a  sheriff. 
A  parrot  press  cried,  "  Anarchy  !  "  Lawyers  growled, 
"  Murder  !  "  —  still,  nobody  was  hung,  if  I  recollect 
aright.  To-day,  the  heart  of  the  Barnburner  beats  in  the 
statute-book  of  your  State.  John  Brown's  movement 
against  slavery  is  exactly  the  same.  Wait  awhile,  and 
you  '11  all  agree  with  me.  What  is  fanaticism  to-day  is 
the  fashionable  creed  to-morrow,  and  trite  as  the  multipli 
cation-table  a  week  after. 

John  Brown  has  stirred  those  omnipotent  pulses,  — 
Lydia  Maria  Child's  is  one.  She  says,  "  That  dungeon 
is  the  place  for  me,"  and  writes  a  letter  in  magnanimous 
appeal  to  the  better  nature  of  Governor  Wise.  She  says 
in  it :  "  John  Brown  is  a  hero  ;  he  has  done  a  noble  deed. 
I  think  he  was  all  right ;  but  he  is  sick  ;  he  is  wounded  ; 
he  wants  a  woman's  nursing.  I  am  an  Abolitionist;  I 
have  been  so  thirty  years.  I  think  slavery  is  a  sin,  and 
John  Brown  a  saint ;  but  I  want  to  come  and  nurse  him  ; 
and  I  pledge  my  word  that  if  you  will  open  his  prison 
door,  I  will  use  the  privilege,  under  sacred  honor,  only  to 
nurse  him.  I  enclose  you  a  message  to  Brown ;  be  sure 
and  deliver  it."  And  the  message  was,  "  Old  man,  God 
bless  you !  You  have  struck  a  noble  blow  ;  you  have 
done  a  mighty  work  ;  God  was  with  you ;  your  heart  was 
in  the  right  place.  I  send  you  across  five  hundred  miles 
the  pulse  of  a  woman's  gratitude."  And  Governor  Wise 


288  HARPER'S  FERRY. 

has  opened  the  door,  and  announced  to  the  world  that  she 
may  go  in.  John  Brown  has  conquered  the  pirate.  [Ap 
plause.]  Hope  !  there  is  hope  everywhere.  It  is  only 
the  universal  history  :  — 

"  Right  forever  on  the  scaffold,  Wrong  forever  on  the  throne  ; 
But  that  scaffold  sways  the  future,  and  behind  the  dim  unknown 
Standeth  God  within  the  shadow,  keeping  watch  above  his  own." 


BURIAL  OF  JOHN  BROWN.* 


HOW  feeble  words  seem  here !  How  can  I  hope  to 
utter  what  your  hearts  are  full  of?  I  fear  to  dis 
turb  the  harmony  which  his  life  breathes  round  this  home. 
One  and  another  of  you,  his  neighbors,  say,  "I  have 
known  him  five  years,"  "  I  have  known  him  ten  years." 
It  seems  to  me  as  if  we  had  none  of  us  known  him.  How 
our  admiring,  loving  wonder  has  grown,  day  by  day,  as  he 
has  unfolded  trait  after  trait  of  earnest,  brave,  tender, 
Christian  life  !  We  see  him  walking  with  radiant,  serene^  v 
face  to  the  scaffold,  and  think  what  an  ir£ELJl£a£t*jvhatl 
devoted  faith!  We  take  up  his  letters,  beginning  "My 
dear  wife  and  children,  everyone,"  —  see  him  stoop  on 
his  way  to  the  scaffold  and  kiss  that  negro  child,  —  and 
this  iron  heart  seems  all  tenderness.  Marvellous  old  man  ! 
We  have  hardly  said  it  when  the  loved  forms  of  his  sons, 
in  the  bloom  of  young  devotion,  encircle  him,  and  we 
remember  he  is  not  alone,  only  the  majestic  centre  of  a 
group.  Your  neighbor  farmer  went,  surrounded  by  his 
household,  to  tell  the  slaves  there  were  still  hearts  and 
right  arms  ready  and  nerved  for  their  service.  From  this 
roof  four,  from  a  neighboring  roof  two,  to  make  up  that 
score  of  heroes.  How  resolute  each  looked  into  the  face 
of  Virginia,  how  loyally  each  stood  at  his  forlorn  post, 
meeting  death  cheerfully,  till  that  master-voice  said,  "  It  is 

*  Delivered  at  the  grave  of  John  Brown,  at  North  Elba,  December  8, 

1859. 

19 


^90  BURIAL   OF   JOHN  BROWN. 

enough."  And  these  weeping  children  and  widow  seem 
so  lifted  up  and  consecrated  by  long,  single-hearted  devo 
tion  to  his  great  purpose,  that  we  dare,  even  at  this 
moment,  to  remind  them  how  blessed  they  are  in  the 
privilege  of  thinking  that  in  the  last  throbs  of  those  brave 
young  hearts,  which  lie  buried  on  the  banks  of  the  Shen- 
andoah,  thoughts  of  them  mingled  with  love  to  God  and 
hope  for  the  slave. 

He  has  abolished  slavery  in  Virginia.  You  may  say 
this  is  too  much.  Our  neighbors  are  the  last  men  we 
know.  The  hours  that  pass  us  are  the  ones  we  appreciate 
the  least.  Men  walked  Boston  streets,  when  night  fell 
on  Bunker's  Hill,  and  pitied  Warren,  saying,  "Foolish 
man  !  Thrown  away  his  life  !  Why  did  n't  he  measure  his 
means  better?"  Now  we  see  him  standing  colossal  on  that 
blood-stained  sod,  and  severing  that  day  the  tie  which 
bound  Boston  to  Great  Britain.  That  night  George  III. 
ceased  to  rule  in  New  England.  History  will  date  Vir 
ginia  Emancipation  from  Harper's  Ferry.  True,  the  slave 
is  still  there.  So,  when  the  tempest  uproots  a  pine  on  your 
hills,  it  looks  green  for  months,  —  a  year  or  two.  Still,  it 
is  timber,  not  a  tree.  John  Brown  has  loosened  the  roots 
of  the  slave  system  ;  it  only  breathes,  —  it  does  not  live,  — 
hereafter. 

Men  say,  "  How  coolly  brave  !  "  But  matchless  courage 
seems  the  least  of  his  merits.  How  gentleness  graced  it ! 
When  the  frightened  town  wished  to  bear  off  the  body  of 
the  Mayor,  a  man  said,  "  I  will  go,  Miss  Fowke,  under 
their  rifles,  if  you  will  stand  between  them  and  me."  He 
knew  he  could  trust  their  gentle  respect  for  woman.  He 
was  right.  He  went  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  and  bore  off 
the  body  in  safety.  That  same  girl  flung  herself  between 
Virginia  rifles  and  your  brave  young  Thompson.  They 
had  no  pity.  The  pitiless  bullet  reached  him,  spite  of 
woman's  prayers,  though  the  fight  had  long  been  over. 


BURIAL   OF  JOHN  BROWN.  291 

I 

How  God  has  blessed  him !  How  truly  he  may  say,  *'  I 
have  fought  a  good  fight,  I  have  finished  my  course." 
Truly  he  has  finished,  —  done  his  work.  God  granted 
him  the  privilege  to  look  on  his  work  accomplished.  He 
said,  "  I  will  show  the  South  that  twenty  men  can  take 
possession  of  a  town,  hold  it  twenty-four  hours,  and  carry 
away  all  the  slaves  who  wish  to  escape."  Did  he  not  do 
it  ?  On  Monday  night  he  stood  master  of  Harper's  Ferry, 
—  could  have  left  unchecked  with  a  score  or  a  hundred 
slaves.  The  wide  sympathy  and  secret  approval  are 
shown  by  the  eager,  quivering  lips  of  lovers  of  slavery, 
asking,  "  O,  why  did  he  not  take  his  victory  and  go 
away  ?  "  Who  checked  him  at  last  ?  Not  startled  Vir 
ginia.  Her  he  had  conquered.  The  Union  crushed, — 
seemed  to  crush  him.  In  reality  God  said,  "  That  work 
is  done  ;  you  have  proved  that  a  Slave  State  is  only  fear  in 
the  mask  of  despotism ;  come  up  higher,  and  baptize  by 
your  martyrdom  a  million  hearts  into  holier  life."  Surely 
such  a  life  is  no  failure.  How  vast  the  change  in  men's 
hearts !  Insurrection  was  a  harsh,  horrid  word  to  millions 
a  month  ago.  John  Brown  went  a  whole  generation  be 
yond  it,  claiming  the  right  for  white  men  to  help  the  slave 
to  freedom  by  arms.  And  now  men  run  up  and  down, 
not  disputing  his  principle,  but  trying  to  frame  excuses 
for  Virginia's  hanging  of  so  pure,  honest,  high-hearted,  and 
heroic  a  man.  Virginia  stands  at  the  bar  of  the  civilized 
world  on  trial.  Round  her  victim  crowd  the  apostles  and 
martyrs,  all  the  brave,  high  souls  who  have  said,  "  God  is 
God,"  and  trodden  wicked  laws  under  their  feet.  As  I 
stood  looking  at  his  grandfather's  gravestone,  brought  here 
from  Connecticut,  telling,  as  it. does,  of  his  death  in  the 
Revolution,  I  thought  I  could  hear  our  hero-saint  saying, 
"My  fathers  gave  their  swords  to  the  oppressor,  —  the 
slave  still  sinks  before  the  pledged  force  of  this  nation.  I 
give  my  sword  to  the  slave  my  fathers  forgot."  If  any 


292  BURIAL   OF  JOHN  BROWN. 

swords  ever  reflected  the  smile  of  Heaven,  surely  it  was 
those  drawn  at  Harper's  Ferry.  If  our  God  is  ever  the 
Lord  of  Hosts,  making  one  man  chase  a  thousand,  surely 
that  little  band  might  claim  him  for  their  captain.  Har 
per's  Ferry  was  no  single  hour,  standing  alone,  —  taken 
out  from  a  common  life,  —  it  was  the  flowering  out  of  fifty 
years  of  single-hearted  devotion.  He  must  have  lived 
wholly  for  one  great  idea,  when  these  who  owe  their  being 
to  him,  and  these  whom  love  has  joined  to  the  circle, 
group  so  harmoniously  around  him,  each  accepting  serenely 
his  and  her  part. 

I  feel  honored  to  stand  under  such  a  roof.  Hereafter 
you  will  tell  children  standing  at  your  knees,  "  I  saw  John 
Brown  buried,  —  I  sat  under  his  roof."  Thank  God  for 
such  a  master.  Could  we  have  asked  a  nobler  representa 
tive  of  the  Christian  North  putting  her  foot  on  the  ac 
cursed  system  of  slavery?  As  time  passes,  and  these 
hrmrs  flont,  bark  into  history,  men  will  see  against  the  clear 
December  sky  that  gallows,  and  round  it  thousands  of 
armed  men  guarding  Virginia  from  her  slaves.  On  the 
other  side,  the  serene  brow  of  that  calm  old  man,  as  he 
stoops  to  kiss  the  child  of  a  forlorn  race.  Thank  God  for 
our  emblem.  May  he  soon  bring  Virginia  to  blot  out  hers 
in  repentant  shame,  and  cover  that  hateful  gallows  and 
soldiery  with  thousands  of  broken  fetters. 

What  lesson  shall  those  lips  teach  us  ?  Before  that  still, 
calm  brow  let  us  take  a  new  baptism.  How  can  we  stand 
here  without  a  fresh  and  utter  consecration  ?  These  tears  ! 
how  shall  we  dare  even  to  offer  consolation  ?  Only  lips 
fresh  from  such  a  vow  have  the  right  to  mingle  their 
words  with  your  tears.  We  envy  you  your  nearer  place 
to  these  martyred  children  of  God.  I  do  not  believe  slav 
ery  will  go  down  in  blood.  Ours  is  the  age  of  thought. 
Hearts  are  stronger  than  swords.  That  last  fortnight! 
How  sublime  its  lesson !  the  Christian  one  of  conscience, 


BURIAL   OF  JOHN  BROWN.  293 

—  of  truth.  Virginia  is  weak,  because  each  man's  heart 
said  amen  to  John  Brown.  His  words,  —  they  are  stronger 
even  than  his  rifles.  These  crushed  a  State.  Those  have 
changed  the  thoughts  of  millions,  and  will  yet  crush  slav 
ery.  Men  said,  "  Would  he  had  died  in  arms !  "  God 
ordered  better,  and  granted  to  him  and  the  slave  those 
noble  prison  hours,  —  that  single  hour  of  death  ;  granted 
him  a  higher  than  the  soldier's  place,  that  of  teacher ;  the 
echoes  of  his  rifles  have  died  away  in  the  hills,  —  a  million 
hearts  guard  his  words.  God  bless  this  roof,  —  make  it 
bless  us.  We  dare  not  say  bless  you,  children  of  this 
home !  you  stand  nearer  to  one  whose  lips  God  touched, 
and  we  rather  bend  for  your  blessing.  God  make  us  all 
worthier  of  him  whose  dust  we  lay  among  these  hills  he 
loved.  Here  he  girded  himself  and  went  forth  to  battle. 
Fuller  success  than  his  heart  ever  dreamed  God  granted 
him.  He  sleeps  in  the  blessings  of  the  crushed  and  the 
poor,  and  men  believe  more  firmly  in  virtue,  now  that 
such  a  man  has  lived.  Standing  here,  let  us  thank  God 
for  a  firmer  faith  and  fuller  hope. 


LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.* 


LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN:  If  the  telegraph 
speaks  truth,  for  the  first  time  in  our  history  the 
slave  has  chosen  a  President  of  the  United  States. 
[Cheers.]  We  have  passed  the  Rubicon,  for  Mr.  Lin 
coln  rules  to-day  as  much  as  he  will  after  the  4th  of 
March.  It  is  the  moral  effect  of  this  victory,  not  any 
thing  which  his  administration  can  or  will  probably  do, 
that  gives  value  to  this  success.  Not  an  Abolitionist, 
hardly  an  antislavery  man,  Mr.  Lincoln  consents  to  rep 
resent  an  antislavery  idea.  A  pawn  on  the  political 
chessboard,  his  value  is  in  his  position  ;  with  fair  effort, 
we  may  soon  change  him  for  knight,  bishop,  or  queen, 
and  sweep  the  board.  [Applause.]  This  position  he 
owes  to  no  merit  of  his  own,  but  to  lives  that  have  roused 
the  nation's  conscience,  and  deeds  that  have  ploughed 
deep  into  its  heart.  Our  childish  eyes  gazed  with  wonder 
at  Maelzel's  chess-player,  and  the  pulse  almost  stopped 
when,  with  the  pulling  of  wires  and  creaking  of  wheels, 
he  moved  a  pawn,  and  said,  "  Check  !  "  Our  wiser  fathers 
saw  a  man  in  the  box.  There  was  great  noise  at  Chicago, 
much  pulling  of  wires  and  creaking  of  wheels,  then  forth 
steps  Abraham  Lincoln.  But  John  Brown  was  behind 
the  curtain,  and  the  cannon  of  March  4th  will  only  echo 
the  rifles  at  Harper's  Ferry.  Last  year,  we  stood  looking 

*  Fraternity  Lecture,  delivered  in  Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  November 
7,  1860. 


LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.  295 

sadly  at  that  gibbet  against  the  Virginia  sky.  One  turn 
of  the  kaleidoscope,  —  it  is  Lincoln  in  the  balcony  of  the 
Cap'tol,  and  a  million  of  hearts  beating  welcome  below. 
[Cheers.] 

Mr.  Seward  said,  in  1850 :  "  You  may  slay  the  Wilmot 
Proviso  in  the  Senate-Chamber,  and  bury  it  beneath  the 
Capitol,  to-day;  the  dead  corse,  in  complete  steel,  will 
haunt  your  legislative  halls  to-morrow."  They  slew  the 
martyr-chief  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac  ;  we  buried  his 
dust  beneath  the  snows  of  North  Elba ;  and  the  statesman 
Senator  of  New  York  wrote  for  his  epitaph,  "  Justly  hung," 
while  party  chiefs  cried,  "  Amen  !  "  but  one  of  those  dead 
hands  smote  to  ruin  the  Babylon  which  that  Senator's  am 
bition  had  builded,  and  the  other  lifts  into  the  Capitol  the 
President  of  1861.  [Applause.] 

The  battle  has  been  a  curious  one,  mixed  and  tossed  in 
endless  confusion.  The  combatants,  in  the  chaos,  caught 
up  often  the  weapons  of  their  opponents,  and  dealt  the 
deadliest  blows  at  their  own  ranks. 

The  Democratic  party,  agitating  fiercely  to  put  down 
agitation,  break  at  last  into  a  general  quarrel  in  their  effort 
to  keep  the  peace  !  [Laughter.]  They  remind  one  of 
.that  sleepy  crier  of  a  New  Hampshire  court,  who  was  ever 
dreaming,  in  his  dog-naps,  that  the  voice  of  judge  or  law 
yer  was  a  noisy  interruption,  and  always  woke  shouting, 
"Silence!"  Judge  Livermore  said  once,  "  Mr.  Crier,  you 
are  the  noisiest  man  in  court,  with  your  everlasting  shout 
of  4  Silence  ' !  "  [Laughter.]  The  Abolitionists  ought  to 
be  very  sorry  to  lose  Mr.  Douglas  from  the  national  arena. 
[Applause.] 

But  the  Bell-Everett  party  have  been  the  comfort  of 
the  canvass,  the  sweet-oil,  the  safety-valve,  the  locomotive 
buffer,  which,  when  collision  threatened,  broke  the  blow, 
and  the  storm  exploded  in  a  laugh.  [Great  merriment.] 
They  played  Sancho  Panza  to  Douglas's  Don  Quixote. 


296  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

[Renewed  laughter.]  We  can  afford  to  thank  them.  It 
is  but  fair,  however,  to  confess  that  they  differ  from  that 
illustrious  Spaniard.  His  chief  anxiety  was  about  his  din 
ner  ;  their  distress  rose  higher  than  loaves  and  fishes,  — 
they  trembled  for  our  glorious  Union.  [Laughter.]  The 
passions  of  men  were  all  on  fire,  —  the  volcano  in  full 
activity.  They  confessed  they  did  not  know  what  to  do  ; 
but  they  determined  not  to  do  they  knew  not  what.  Theirs 
was  the  stand-still  policy,  the  cautious  statu  quo  of  the  old 
law. 

Now,  Whately  says  there  are  two  ways  of  being  burned. 
The  rash  moth  hurries  into  the  flame,  and  is  gone.  The 
cautious,  conservative  horse,  when  his  stable  is  on  fire, 
stands  stock-still,  and  is  burnt  up  all  the  same.  The 
Everett  party  chose  the  horse  policy  when  their  stable 
took  fire.  [Applause.]  Don't  you  hear  the  horse's  ad 
dress  :  "  In  this  stall  my  father  stood  in  1789.  Methinks 
I  hear  his  farewell  neigh.  How  agitated  the  crowds  seem 
outside  there  !  I  '11  have  no  platform  but  that  my  father 
had  in  '89,"  —  and  so  he  dies.  Yet  the  noble  animal  risked 
only  his  own  harm.  His  mistakes  drag  none  else  to  ruin. 
Four  millions  of  human  beings  saw  their  fate  hanging  on 
this  do-nothing,  keep-silent,  let-evil-alone  party.  Then 
their  appeals  to  us  to  keep  silent,  to  cease  criticising  chains 
and  slave-auctions,  hangings  and  burnings  of  men  for  free 
speech ;  their  kindly  assurances  that,  if  we  would  only  be 
still,  no  harm  would  come,  —  the  whole  trouble  was  our 
noise ;  they  implored  us  not  to  cherish  this  dislike  to  these 
constitutional  and  necessary  measures  !  Like  the  viper- 
pedler  in  Spain,  who  exhibited  his  stock  to  the  inn  guests 
all  the  evening,  descanting  on  their  life  and  vigor,  and 
when  at  night,  in  the  utter  dark,  one  traveller  felt  some 
thing  cold  crawling  on  his  face,  cried  out :  "  It  is  only  my 
vipers,  they  are  all  loose  ;  but  if  you  '11  only  lie  perfectly 
still  and  quiet,  they  won't  hurt  you  the  least."  [Ap 
plause.] 


LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.  297 

But  Republicanism  has  triumphed.  [Loud  applause.] 
The  Democrat  may  forget  his  quarrels,  and  prepare  to  die 
with  decency.  For  the  Bell-Everett  party,  one  egg  has 
given  a  chicken.  Mr.  Appleton  is  elected.  Beacon  Street 
and  Ann  Street  have  fused.  [Merriment.]  As  his  con 
stituents  could  not  be  admitted  to  Mr.  Appleton's  house, 
—  there  not  being  police  enough  to  watch  them,  [great 
merriment,] — the  speeches  were  made  outside,  and  we 
got  all  the  secrets.  Mr.  Stevenson  thinks  the  election  of 
Mr.  Appleton  "  the  most  important  that  lias  taken  place 
since  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution."  I  observed,  last 
summer,  in  the  country,  that  the  geese  always  bowed 
when  they  entered  a  barn,  for  fear  of  hitting  their  heads. 
[Laughter.]  Mr.  Burlingame  needs  no  praise  of  mine. 
He  stood,  like  Hancock  and  Adams,  the  representative  of 
an  idea,  and  the  city  that  rejected  him  disgraced  only  her 
self.  [Applause.]  As  an  old  English  judge  said  of  a 
sentence  he  blushed  to  declare,  "In  this  I  seem  to  pro 
nounce  sentence  not  on  the  prisoner,  but  on  the  law  itself." 
It  is  Boston,  not  Burlingame,  that  has  cause  to  blu«h  to 
day.  [Cheers.]  I  do  not  envy  Mr.  Appleton  his  seat. 
You  remember  Webster  painted  Washington  leaning  one 
great  arm  on  Massachusetts,  and  the  other  on  South 
Carolina.  Methinks  I  see  our  merchant  prince  entering 
Congress.  One  hand  rests  familiarly  on  the  shoulder  of 
Beacon  Street,  the  other  on  a  cambric  handkerchief,  twice 
doubled,  to  save  the  possibility  of  his  touching  the  shoulder 
of  Ann  Street.  [Laughter  and  applause.]  What  is  his 
first  act  when  seated,  —  he,  the  representative  of  the  fag- 
ends  of  half  a  dozen  parties,  —  the  broken  meat  of  the 
political  charity-basket  ?  He  speak  the  voice  of  Boston, 
the  home  of  Sam  Adams,  in  this  glorious  hour !  What 
will  it  be  ?  When  Sherman  is  named  for  Speaker,  he 
says  "  No,"  while  the  heart  of  Boston  says  "  Yes."  And 
what  is  his  second  and  last  act?  To  gather  round  his 


298  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

table  Davis  and  Mason, — men  who  gloried  in  the  blow 
which  exiled  Sumner  from  the  Senate  for  four  years,  and 
made  Christendom  tremble  for  his  life,  —  men  who  come 
for  his  .wine,  and  not  for  his  wit,  —  and  Boston,  in  his 
person,  sinks  to  be  their  associate,  —  no,  their  lackey.  I 
affirm,  he  does  not  represent  Boston.  [Cheers.]  Look 
at  its  Lincoln  vote  !  I  appeal  from  Philip  drunk  to 
Philip  sober,  from  Ann  Street,  cozened  by  old  fogies, 
to  Ann  Street  under  guidance  of  her  native  instincts. 
[Loud  applause.]  Mr.  Appleton  represents  neither  the 
merchants  of  Boston  nor  its  grog-shops,  though  his  friends 
boast  of  having  carried  him  by  their  aid.  They  are  both 
too  good  for  him. 

But  the  Bell-Everett  party  cannot  say,  with  Francis  I. 
at  Pavia,  when  he  addressed  the  first  lady  by  position  in  the 
State,  "Madam,  we  have  lost  all  but  honor,"  since  the  sore 
ness  of  expected  defeat  led  them  to  insult  an  invited  guest, 
a  lady,  and  that  lady,  like  the  mother  of  Francis,  the  first 
by  position  in  the  State.  [Loud  applause.]  Of  the  first 
Governor  of  Massachusetts  (unless  we  count  Endicott, 
and  then  call  Winthrop  our  second  Governor),  the  last 
historian  writes :  "  The  qualities  that  denote  the  gentle 
man  were  eminently  his.  Cordial  and  ready  to  every 
expression  of  respect  and  courtesy,  he  gave  all  their 
due,  whether  in  great  or  little  things."  Good  and  bad 
qualities,  they  tell  us,  are  inherited,  —  pass  down  with  the 
blood.  To  be  sure,  now  and  then  they  lie  latent  for  one 
generation.  Can  ours  be  the  generation  of  eclipse  ?  It 
must  be  so,  for  surely  the  ignorance  of  good  manners 
which  offers  an  insult  is  trivial,  compared  with  the  silence 
of  those  who  know  better  than  their  lackeys,  are  as  re 
sponsible  for  the  act,  and  refuse  acknowledgment  or  pro 
test.  [Applause.] 

Well,  the  battle  is  ended.  What  have  we  gained  ? 
Let  us,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  who  care  nothing  for  men 


LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.  299 

or  for  offices,  whose  only  interest  is  justice  and  the  great 
future  of  the  Republic,  look  round  and  weigh  the  spoils. 

Everybody  speculates,  the  pulpit  affirms,  the  merchant 
guesses,  and  the  oracular  press  lays  down  the  law.  Why 
should  not  the  lyceum  be  in  the  fashion  ?  To  begin,  then, 
at  home.  For  the  first  time  within  my  memory  we  have 
got  a  man  for  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  a  frank,  true, 
whole-souled,  honest  MAN.  [Cheering.]  That  gain  alone 
is  worth  all  the  labor.  But  the  office  is  not  the  most  im 
portant  in  the  Commonwealth  ;  only  now  and  then  it 
becomes  commanding  ;  in  a  sad  Burns  week,  for  instance, 
when  Mr.  Washburn  was  masquerading  .as  Governor, 
and  when,  as  Emerson  said,  "  if  we  had  a  man,  and 
not  a  cockade,  in  the  chair,  something  might  be  done  "  ;  or, 
later,  when  the  present  Chief  Magistrate  pushed  Judge 
Loring,  on  false  pretences,  from  his  stool.  Such  occasions 
remind  us  we  have  a  Governor.  But  in  common  times, 
the  Chief  Justiceship  is  far  more  commanding,  —  is  the 
real  Gibraltar  of  our  State  contests.  John  A.  Andrew 
should  have  been  Chief  Justice.  [Applause.]  You  re 
member  they  made  the  first  William  Pitt  Earl  of  Chatham, 
and  he  went  into  eclipse  in  the  House  of  Lords.  Some 
one  asked  Chesterfield  what  had  become  of  Pitt.  "  He 
has  had  a  fall  up-stairs,"  was  the  answer.  Governor 
Andrew  or  Judge  Andrew  sounds  equally  well.  But 
I  like  the  right  man  in  the  right  place.  The  chief  jus 
ticeship  belongs  to  the  party  of  progress.  Their  Sparta 
can  point  to  many  sons  worthy  of  the  place,  —  Sewall, 
Hoar,  Dana,  or  we  might  have  offered  another  laurel  for 
the  brow  of  our  great  Senator,  were  it  only  to  show  him 
that  the  profession  he  once  honored  still  remembers  her 
truant  son.  [Great  applause.]  The  outgoing  administra 
tion,  which  entailed  that  office  on  talents,  however  respect 
able,  that  belong  to  the  party  of  resistance,  placed  itself 
by  the  side  of  Arnold  selling  West  Point  to  the  British. 


300  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

Such  an  appointment  was  the  Parthian  arrow  of  a  traitor 
and  a  snob.  <- 

Then  we  have  Lincoln  for  President  [applause] ,  —  a 
Whig,  —  a  Revolutionary  Whig, — a  freedom-loving  Whig, 
—  a  Whig  in  the  sense  that  Jefferson,  Hamilton,  and 
Washington  were  Whigs.  How  much  is  that  worth  ?  I 
said  we  had  passed  the  Rubicon.  Caesar  crossed  the  Rubi 
con,  borne  in  the  arms  of  a  people  trodden  into  poverty 
and  chains  by  an  oligarchy  of  slaveholders ;  but  that  oli 
garchy  proved  too  strong  even  for  Caesar  and  his  legions. 
Judged  by  its  immediate  success,  Caesar's  life  was  a  failure 
as  much  as  John  Brown's  ;  the  Empire  rotted  into  the 
grave  which  slavery  digs  for  all  its  victims.  What  better 
right  have  we  to  hope  ?  Let  us  examine.  The  Repub 
lican  party  says  now  what  Mr.  Sunnier  said  in  1852,  that 
it  "  knows  no  better  aim,  under  the  Constitution,  than  to 
bring  back  the  government "  to  where  it  stood  in  1789. 
That  is  done.  The  echo  of  cannon  from  ocean  shore  to 
the  Rocky  Mountains  proclaims  it  accomplished. 

How  much  is  such  success  worth  ?  I  suppose  you  will 
not  claim  that  Mr.  Lincoln  is  better  than  Washington. 
As  only  Abolition  telescopes  have  dared  to  discover  any 
spots  on  that  sun,  certainly,  while  Mr.  Everett  lives  and 
the  Ledger  is  printed,  no  one  will  presume  to  say  there 
can  be  a  better  President  than  Washington.  Indeed,  Mr. 
Seward  asks  in  great  contempt  of  any  man  who  undertakes 
to  improve  the  Constitution,  "  Are  you  more  just  than 
Washington,  wiser  than  Hamilton,  more  humane  than 
Jefferson  ?  "  Well,  then,  Washington,  pursuing  the  very 
policy  which  Mr.  Lincoln  proposes  to  follow,  launched  the 
ship  of  state  on  seas  white  with  the  fervor  of  the  Revolu 
tionary  love  of  liberty,  and  made  shipwreck.  Every  ad 
ministration  grew  worse  than  its  predecessor,  and  at  last 
slavery,  having  wound  its  slimy  way  to  the  top  of  the 

Capitol, 

"  Hangs  hissing  at  the  nobler  man  below." 


LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.  301 

The  whole  argument  of  the  canvass  has  been,  that  the 
experiment  of  self-government  under  this  Constitution, 
began  by  the  best  of  men,  has  been  a  failure.  "  The 
country  is  wrecked ;  take  us  for  pilots,  or  you  are  lost/'  — 
has  been  the  cry  of  the  Republicans.  Mr.  Sumner  has 
drawn  the  sad  picture  so  well  and  so  often  that  I  need  not 
attempt  it.  Our  Presidents  tools  of  the  Slave  Power, 
our  army  used  to  force  slavery  on  our  own  Territories 
and  neighbor-nations,  free  speech  punished  with  death  in 
one  half  the  Union,  and  met  with  insult  and  starvation  in 
the  other,  the  slave-trade  reopened,  and  our  most  dis 
tinguished  scholar  telegraphing  apologies  when  his  son  sits 
at  school  beside  a  colored  boy,  and  explaining  his  own 
indiscreet  freedom  of  speech  as  the  sad  result  of  anodynes. 
[Applause.]  Surely  Mr.  Seward,  seeing  all  this,  was 
right  in  confessing,  at  Rochester,  in  1858,  "  Thus  far  our 
course  has  not  been  according  to  the  humane  hopes  and 
expectations  of  our  fathers."  And,  in  1860,  "Not  over 
the  face  of  the  whole  world  is  there  to  be  found  one  repre 
sentative  of  our  country  who  is  not  an  apologist  of  the- 
extension  of  slavery."  And  again,  in  Kansas,  a  month 
ago,  "  Our  fathers  thought  slavery  would  cease  before 
now  ;  but  the  people  became  demoralized ;  the  war  went 
back,  back,  BACK,  until  1854,  until  all  guaranties  of  free 
dom  in  every  part  of  the  United  States  were  abandoned, 

and  the  flag  of  the  United  States  was  made  the 

harbinger,  not  of  freedom,  but  of  human  bondage." 

At  Rochester,  he  went  on  to  paint  the  picture  of  our 
national  wreck  so  darkly,  that  his  own  feelings  led  him,  in 
conclusion,  to  declare,  that,  if  the  final  battle  goes  against 
him,  he  will  leave  America,  shake  the  dust  off  his  feet,  and 
-find  "  a  more  congenial  home  ;  for  where  Liberty  dwells, 
•there  is  my  country." 

k     But  Mr.   Seward  closes  that  speech   in    hope,  —  hope 
.grounded  on  this,  that  the  Republican  party  has  arisen. 


802  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

"  It  is  a  party  of  one  idea ;  an  idea  that  fills  and  expands 
all  generous  souls  ;  the  idea  of  equality,  —  the  equality  of 
all  men  before  human  tribunals,  as  they  are  all  equal  be 
fore  the  Divine  tribunal  and  laws." 

That  is  his  rainbow  of  hope.  It  is  a  noble  idea,  — 
equality  before  the  law,  —  a  mark  which  an  old  Greek 
declared,  two  thousand  years  ago,  distinguished  freedom 
from  barbarism.  Mark  it,  and  let  us  question  Mr.  Lin 
coln  about  it. 

Do  you  believe,  Mr.  Abraham  Lincoln,  that  the  negro 
is  your  political  and  social  equal,  or  ought  to  be  ?  Not  a 
bit  of  it. 

Do  you  believe  he  should  sit  on  juries  ?     Never. 

Do  you  think  he  should  vote  ?     Certainly  not. 

Should  he  be  considered  a  citizen  ?  I  tell  you  frankly, 
no. 

Do  you  think  that,  when  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  says,  "  All  men  are  created  equal,"  it  intends  the 
political  equality  of  blacks  and  whites  ?  No,  sir. 

If  this  "  idea  that  fills  all  generous  minds  "  be  equality, 
surely  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  is  as  yet  empty.  If  this  is  the 
only  hope  of  our  being  able  to  achieve  what  our  fathers 
failed  to  do,  mount  those  Arab  horses,  Mr.  Seward,  and 
fly  to  the  desert !  But  you  can't  fly  with  me,  as  the  song 
goes ;  first,  because,  if  we  are  defeated,  I  mean  to  die  in 
the  last  ditch  [applause]  ;  and,  secondly,  notwithstanding 
the  emptiness  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind,  I  think  we  shall  yet 
succeed  in  making  this  a  decent  land  to  live  in.  [Cheers.] 
May  I  tell  you  why  ?  Place  yourselves  at  the  door  of 
the  Chicago  Convention.  Do  you  see  Mr.  Lincoln  ?  He 
believes  a  negro  may  walk  where  he  wishes,  eat  what  he 
earns,  read  what  he  can,  and  associate  with  any  other  who 
is  exactly  of  the  same  shade  of  black  he  is.  That  is  all  he 
can  grant.  Well,  on  the  other  side  is  Mr.  Seward.  He 
believes  the  free  negro  should  sit  on  juries,  vote,  be  eligi- 


LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.  303 

ble  to  office,  —  that 's  all.  So  much  he  thinks  he  can 
grant  without  hurting  the  Union. 

Now  raise  your  eyes  up  I  In  the  blue  sky  above,  you 
will  see  Mr.  Garrison  and  John  Brown  !  [Prolonged 
cheering.]  They  believe  the  negro,  bond  or  free,  has  the 
same  right  to  fight  that  a  white  man  has,  —  the  same  claim 
on  us  to  fight  for  him ;  and  as  for  the  consequences  to  the 
Union,  who  cares?  Liberty  first,  and  the  Union  after 
wards,  is  their  motto.  [Cheers.]  Liberty  first,  and,  as 
the  Scotch  say,  "  Let  them  care  who  come  ahind." 

That  Convention  selected  Lincoln  for  their  standard- 
bearer.  Enough  gain  for  once.  "  First  the  blade,  then 
the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear."  [Loud  cheers.] 
Dr.  Windship  began  with  a  dumb-bell  of  ten  pounds  ;  after 
four  years,  he  raises  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  in  each 
hand.  The  elephants,  when  crossing  a  river,  send  the 
smallest  first.  Don't  mount  those  Arab  steeds  yet,  Mr. 
Seward  !  "  Wait  a  little  longer."  Who  knows  whether 

o 

that  Liberator,  whose  printing-office  Mayor  Otis  could  not 
find  in  1835,  may  not  be  issued  from  the  eastern  room 
of  the  White  House  in  1873,  and  Mr.  Seward  himself, 
instead  of  saying  that  John  Brown  was  "justly  hung," 
may  dare  then  to  declaim,  as  Charles  O'Connor  does  now, 
in  the  Supreme  Court  at  Albany: — • 

"  A  man  who  knows  that  the  law  under  which  he  lives  violates 

the  first  principles  of  natural  justice is  bound  to  strive,  by 

all  honorable  means,  to  break  down  and  defeat  that  law.    Among 
these  honorable  means  is  the  right  of  armed  resistance,  —  the 
sacred  riprht  of  revolution.  .....  This  is  the  higher  law  which 

sanctified  the  revolt  of  George  Washington  against  the  consti 
tuted  authorities  then  existing  in  this  country The  laurel- 
wreath  of  victory  surrounds  the  name  of  Washington.  '  Hi-suc 
cess,  defeat,  overthrow,  and  death,  in  an  ignominious  form,  might 
have  been  his  fate.  Such  was  the  fate  of  many  who,  in  this  re 
spect,  perhaps,  were  as  pure  and  virtuous  as  he.  We  revere  the 


304  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

name  of  Emmett ;  we  revere  the  name  of  Wallace, of 

every  virtuous  man  who  has  perished  in  unsuccessful  attempts  to 
achieve  the  independence  of  his  country 

"  And  therefore,  if  negro  slavery  be  a  thing  so  unjust  and  so 
wicked  as  my  friends  and  their  associates  esteem  it,  I  must  admit 
that  we  cannot  consistently  refuse  the  same  tribute  to  the  recent 
abolition  martyr,  John  Brown.  He  fell !  So  have  many  illus 
trious  champions  of  justice.  He  failed !  So  did  Emmett,  and 
so  did  Wallace.  His  means  were  inadequate !  So  were  theirs  : 
the  event  proved  it.  He  struggled  indeed  for  the  liberty  of  a 
distant  people,  who  were  not  his  kinsmen,  who  were  not  of  his 
color,  who  had  few  claims  upon  his  sympathy,  and  none  upon  his 
affections.  That  may  be  an  argument  against  him  with  those 
who  think  that  heroism  and  virtue  should  never  be  disinterested ; 
but  it  has  no  real  weight. 

"  We  have  not  been  in  the  habit  of  withholding  our  meed  of 
praise  from  Kosciusko,  Pulaski,  De  Kalb,  or  Lafayette,  all  of 
whom  fought,  and  two  of  whom  perished  for  us.  We  withheld 
not  our  tribute  of  admiration  from  Lafayette  when,  in  his  old 
age,  he  visited  our  country.  No  one  asserted  that  he  should 
have  stayed  at  home,  instead  of  coming  in  aid  of  a  remote  and 
distant  people,  and  imperilling  his  life  for  their,  emancipation. 
No!  we  received  him  as  the  people's  guest,  and  the  whole 
American  nation,  from  one  end  of  our  republic  to  the  other, 
bowed  down  in  heartfelt  homage  to  his  virtue. 

"  How  can  my  learned  friends,  with  their  avowed  principles, 
withhold  from  John  Brown  the  tribute  of  their  admiration,  or 
from  his  deeds  the  sanction  of  their  approval  ? " 

That  is  the  opinion  of  Charles  O'Connor,  the  head  of 
the  New  York  Bar,  the  new-fledged  orator  of  Democracy, 
and  the  counsel  for  Virginia  in  the  Lemmon  case. 

I  expect  to  live  to  hear  that  sentence  quoted  in  1872, 
under  the  very  dome  of  the  Capitol,  by  some  Senator 
anxious  for  a  Presidential  nomination  !  [Applause.]  Do 
you  doubt  it?  Why,  it  is  not  impossible  that  Virginia 
herself,  clothed  and  in  her  right  mind,  may  yet  beg  of 


LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.  805 

New  York  the  dust  of  John  Brown  for  some  mausoleum 
at  Richmond,  as  repentant  Florence,  robed  in  sackcloth, 
begged  of  Ravenna  the  dust  of  that  outlawed  Dante,  whom 
a  century  before  she  ordered  to  be  burned  alive.  [Great 
cheering.]  You  think  me  a  fanatic,  perhaps  ?  Well,  I 
have  been  thought  so  once  or  twice  before.  [Laughter.] 
May  I  tell  you  the  reason  of  the  faith  that  is  in  me  ?  It 
does  not  hang  on  President  Lincoln  or  any  other  Presi 
dent.  Certainly  not  while  he  is  checkmated  by  both 
House  and  Senate.  I  think  little  of  the  direct  influence 
of  governments.  I  think,  with  Guizot,  that  "  it  is  a  gross 
delusion  to  believe  in  the  sovereign  power  of  political  ma 
chinery."  To  hear  some  men  talk  of  the  government, 
you  would  suppose  that  Congress  was  the  law  of  gravita 
tion,  and  kept  the  planets  in  their  places.  Mr.  Webster 
sneered  at  the  antislavery  and  kindred  movements  as 
"  rub-a-dub  agitations."  Judge  Story  plumes  himself  on 
our  government  abolishing  the  slave-trade  in  1808,  as  if 
in  that  it  was  not  the  servant  of  Clarkson  and  Wilberforce, 
Benezet  and  Woolman ! 

I  never  take  up  a  paper  full  of  Congress  squabbles, 
reported  as  if  sunrise  depended  upon  them,  without  think 
ing  of  that  idle  English  nobleman  at  Florence,  whose 
brother,  just  arrived  from  London,  happening  to  mention 
the  House  of  Commons,  he  languidly  asked,  "  Ah !  is  that 
thing  going  still  ?  "  [Great  merriment.]  Did  you  ever  see 
on  Broadway  —  you  may  in  Naples  —  a  black  figure  grind 
ing  chocolate  in  the  windows  ?  He  seems  to  turn  the 
wheel,  but  in  truth  the  wheel  turns  him.  [Laughter.] 
Now  such  is  the  President  of  the  United  States.  He  seems 
to  govern  ;  he  only  reigns.  As  Lord  Brougham  said  in  a 
similar  case,  —  Lincoln  is  in  place,  Garrison  in  power. 
[Applause.]  "  Rub-a-dub  agitation,"  forsooth  !  as  if  Mr. 
Webster  could  have  a  Whig  party,  or  anything  else,  in 
these  reading  days,  without  that  agitation  which  calls  into 
20 


806  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

being  and  sustains  the  press,  which  melts  and  moulds  the 
popular  will  and  heart.  What  would  the  Tribune  be 
without  the  antislavery  movement  ?  Let  progressive  men 
be  mum,  and  the  Tribune  would  starve.  We  could  better 
do  without  it,  than  it  without  us.  This  talk  of  politicians 
about  quieting  agitation,  and  yet  expecting  progress,  or 
even  life,  is  like  the  present  Shah  of  Persia,  (not  one  of 
whose  subjects  in  fifty  thousand  can  read,  and  not  one  in 
a  hundred  thousand  can  write,)  exclaiming,  when  Sir 
Gore  Ousely  told  him  of  the  large  revenue  from  the 
British  post-office,  "  I  '11  have  a  post-office  to-morrow." 
[Loud  applause.]  You  might  as  well  have  jury  trials  in 
Timbuctoo.  [Laughter.]  It  is  worse  than  making  bricks 
without  straw  ;  it  is  making  bricks  without  clay. 

Observe,  I  do  not  depreciate  statesmanship.  It  requires 
great  ability  to  found  states  and  governments,  but  only 
common  talent  to  carry  them  on.  It  took  Fulton  and 
Watt  to  create  the  steam-engine  ;  but  a  very  ordinary 
man  can  engineer  a  train  from  Boston  to  Albany. 

Some  critics  sneer  at  old  histories  for  recording  only 
what  government  did.  They  should  remember  how 
much,  in  old  times,  governments  covered  the  whole  field 
of  human  life,  —  trade,  letters,  religion,  and  industry. 
The  annals  of  a  dynasty  were  then,  to  a  great  extent,  the 
history  of  the  times.  We  call  for  different  histories,  be 
cause  the  times  have  so  much  changed.  At  present,  it  is 
not  cabinets,  but  art,  science,  literature,  opinion,  fashion, 
and  trade  that  mould  national  character  and  purpose. 
These,  the  London  Times  confessed,  a  dozen  years  ago, 
were  infinitely  more  than  statutes  or  parties.  The  late 
canvass  was  worth  a  dozen  Lincolns.  The  agitation  was 
a  yeomanly  service  to  liberty.  It  educated  the  people. 
One  such  canvass  makes  amends  for  the  cowardice  of  our 
scholars,  and  consoles  us  under  the  infliction  of  Harvard 
College.  [Laughter  and  applause.]  Indeed,  government 


LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.  307 

is  only  a  necessary  evil,  like  other  go-carts  and  crutches. 
Our  need  of  it  shows  exactly  how  far  we  are  still  children. 
All  governing  over-much  kills  the  self-help  and  energy  of 
the  governed.  Compare  the  last  century  with  this,  or  the 
European  with  the  Yankee.  Every  narrowing  of  the 
sphere  of  government  proves  growth  in  the  people,  and  is 
the  seed  of  further  growth. 

Civilization  dwarfs  political  machinery.  Without  doubt, 
the  age  of  Fox  and  Pitt  was  one  in  which  the  prejudices 
of  courts  and  the  machinery  of  cabinets  had  large  sway. 
But  how  absurd  to  say  even  of  Pitt  and  Fox  that  they 
shaped  the  fate  of  England.  The  inventions  of  Watt  and 
Arkwright  set  free  millions  of  men  for  the  ranks  of  Wel 
lington  ;  the  wealth  they  created  clothed  and  fed  those 
hosts  ;  the  trade  they  established  necessitated  the  war,  if 
it  was  at  all  or  ever  necessary.  Berlin  and  Milan  decrees 
would  have  smothered  every  man  in  England.  The  very 
goods  they  manufactured,  shut  out  from  the  continent, 
would  have  crowded  the  inhabitants  off  their  little  island. 
It  was  land  monopoly  that  declared  war  with  France,  and 
trade  fought  the  battle.  Napoleon  was  struck  down  by 
no  eloquence  of  the  House  of  Commons,  by  no  sword  of 
Wellington.  He  was  crushed  and  ground  to  powder  in 
the  steam-engines  of  James  Watt. 

Cobden  and  O'Connell,  out  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
were  giants ;  in  it,  dwarfs.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  the  cotton- 
spinner,  was  as  much  a  power  as  Sir  Robert  Peel,  the 
Prime  Minister.  We  went  to  stare  at  the  Lord  Chancel 
lor,  not  for  his  seals  and  velvet  bag,  but  because  he  was 
Harry  Brougham  of  the  Edinburgh  Review.  Rowland 
Hill  and  Adam  Smith,  Granville  Sharpe  and  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  the  London  Times  and  the  Stock  Exchange, 
outweigh  a  century  of  Cannings  and  Palmerstons,  Glad 
stones,  Liverpools,  and  Earls  Grey. 

Weighed   against   the  New  England   Primer,   Lyraan 


308  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

Beeclier,  and  Franklin,  against  the  New  York  Tribune 
and  Herald,  all  onr  thirteen  Presidents  kick  the  beam. 
The  pulpit  and  the  steamboat  are  of  infinitely  more  mo 
ment  than  the  Constitution.  The  South  owes  the  exist 
ence  of  slavery  to-day  to  the  cunning  of  a  Massachusetts 
Yankee,  Eli  Whitney ;  and  Fulton  did  more  to  perpetuate 
the  Union  than  a  Senate-Chamber  of  Websters.  I  will 
not  say  that  Mr.  Banks,  at  the  head  of  the  Illinois  Railway 
(if  he  ever  gets  there),  will  be  a  more  influential  man  than 
while  Governor  of  this  State,  but  I  will  say  that  the  found 
ers  and  presidents  of  our  railways  are  a  much  more 
influential  body  than  the  Senate  of  the  Union. 

Still,  though  I  think  little  of  political  machinery,  I  value 
the  success  of  the  Republican  party  ;  not  so  much  as  an 
instrument,  but  as  a  milestone.  It  shows  how  far  we  have 
got.  Let  me  explain.  [Laughter.]  You  know  that 
geologists  tell  us  that  away  back  there,  before  Moses 
[laughter],  the  earth  hung  a  lurid  mass  of  granite,  hot, 
floating  in  thick  carbonic  acid  gas  for  an  atmosphere, — 
poison,  thick  gas.  Gradually  the  granite  and  choke- 
damp,  as  miners  call  it,  united  and  made  limestone  ;  then 
more  choke-damp  was  absorbed,  and  sandstone  came  j 
more  still,  and  coal  appeared.  By  this  time,  the  air  had 
parted  with  all  its  poison,  and  was  pure  enough  to  breathe. 
Then  came  man  !  Just  such  has  been  our  progress.  Our 
government  hung  a  lurid,  floating  mass  in  the  poisonous 
atmosphere  of  New  York  Observers  and  Heralds,  Tract 
Societies,  pro-slavery  pulpits,  Union  meetings,  Calhouns, 
Everetts,  Websters,  and  Halletts,  slave-hunters,  Curtises. 
The  chemical  process  began.  They  were  partially  ab 
sorbed.  We  had  Whig  parties,  anti-Texas  meetings,  and 
Free-soil  factions.  The  change  went  on,  and  finally  we 
have  a  party  that  dares  to  say  slavery  is  a  sin  —  in  some 
places  !  The  air  begins  to  grow  almost  pure  enough  to 
breathe.  [Applause.] 


'  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.  309 

Scientific  men  think  that  electricity  did  much  to  hasten 
the  coming  of  limestone  and  coal,  and  the  disappearance 
of  poison  gas.  In  our  case,  too,  electricity,  —  by  which  I 
mean  the  Garrison  party  [loud  laughter  and  applause],  — • 
flashing  through  and  through  and  all  over  the  lazy  heav 
ens,  quickened  our  change  also.  But  the  growth  will  be 
a  great  deal  quicker  in  time  to  come.  [Loud  applause.] 
One  great  evil  of  politics  —  one  that  almost  outweighs 
the  help  it  indirectly  gives  to  education  —  is  the  chains  it 
puts  on  able  men.  Those  chains  are  much  loosened  now. 
Listen  to  Mr.  Seward  on  the  prairies !  Notice  how  free 
and  eloquent  he  has  been  since  the  Chicago  Convention  ! 
And  this  change  is  not  due  to  age.  You  know,  I  am  apt 
to  say,  among  other  impertinent  things,  that  you  can 
always  get  the  truth  from  an  American  statesman  after  he 
has  turned  seventy,  or  given  up  all  hope  of  the  Presi 
dency.  [Applause.]  I  should  like  a  law  that  one  third 
of  our  able  men  should  be  ineligible  to  that  office  ;  then 
every  third  man  would  tell  us  the  truth.  The  last  ten 
years  of  John  Quincy  Adams  were  the  frankest  of  his  life. 
In  them,  he  poured  out  before  the  people  the  treason  and 
indignation  which  formerly  he  had  only  written  in  his 
diary.  And  Josiah  Quincy,  the  venerable,  God  bless 
him  !  has  told  us  more  truth  since  he  was  eighty,  than  he 
ever  did  before.  [Applause.]  They  tell  us  that  until 
this  year  they  have  not  been  able  to  survey  Mount  Wash 
ington  ;  its  iron  centre  warped  the  compass.  Just  so  with 
our  statesmen  before  they  reach  seventy,  their  survey  of 
the  state  is  ever  false.  That  great  central  magnet  at 
Washington  deranges  all  their  instruments. 

Let  me  take  the  speeches  of  Mr.  Seward  as  an  illustra 
tion  of  American  statesmen.  I  take  him,  because  he  is  a 
live  man,  and  a  worthy  sample.  [Applause.]  I  agree 
with  the  doctors'  rule,  —  Medicamenta  non  agunt  in  cadaver, 
—  "  Dead  bodies  are  no  test  of  drugs."  But  he  is  a  fair 


310  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

test,  —  a  real  live  statesman  ;  not  one  of  those  petty  poli 
ticians  who  hang  on  agitation  for  what  they  can  pick  up,  as 
I  have  seen  birds,  in  summer,  watch  round  a  horse's  feet 
for  the  insects  his  tread  disturbs.  No,  he  is  a  statesman. 

In  1848,  at  Cleveland,  Mr.  Seward  said :  "We  of  New 
York  are  guilty  of  slavery  still  by  withholding  the  right 
of  suffrage  from  the  race  we  have  emancipated.  You  of 
Ohio  are  guilty  in  the  same  way  by  a  system  of  black  laws 

still  more  aristocratic  and  odious It  is  written  in 

the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  in  violation  of  the 
Divine  law,  that  we  shall  surrender  the  fugitive  slave 
who  takes  refuge  at  our  fireside  from  his  relentless  pur 
suers." 

Mark  the  confession  !  the  Constitution  he  stands  sworn 
to  support  violates  the  Divine  law  I  Does  he  advise  his 
hearers  to  obey  it  ?  O  no  !  He  goes  on  :  "  Extend  a 
cordial  welcome  to  the  fugitive  who  lays  his  weary  limbs 
at  your  door,  and  defend  him  as  you  would  your  paternal 
gods."  This  is  one  of  his  methods  of  "  an  effective  ag 
gression  on  slavery."  That  sounds  well.  No  twaddle 
about  non-extension.  No  wonder  Senator  Mason  sum 
moned  such  a  bloody  fanatic  before  the  Harper's  Ferry 
Committee  ! 

Well,  in  the  Senate,  in  1850,  he  declares  that  "  the  law 
of  nature,  written  on  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  free 
men,  repudiates  the  fugitive  slave  clause " ;  that  "  we 
cannot  be  either  true  Christians  or  true  freemen,  if  we 
impose  on  another  a  chain  that  we  defy  all  human  power 
to  fasten  on  ourselves  "  ;  and  he  "  thinks  it  wrong  to  hold 
men  in  bondage,  at  any  time,  and  under  any  circum 
stances."  But  yet,  at  the  same  time,  having  counselled 
Ohio  to  resist  the  slave  clause,  and  denounced  it  as  a  "  com 
pact  no  Christian  nation  would  ever  make,"  he  goes  on  to 
pledge  himself  to  use  only  "  constitutional  and  peaceful 
means "  to  resist  slavery,  all  about  the  paternal  gods  to 


LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.  311 

the  contrary  notwithstanding !  You  need  not  summon 
him,  Mr.  Mason  !  He  won't  do  any  harm  !  In  1860, 
just  after  Harper's  Ferry,  he  tells  the  South,  that,  if  their 
sovereignty  is  assailed,  within  or  without,  no  matter  on 
what  pretext,  or  who  the  foe,  he  will  defend  it  as  he  would 
his  own !  You  see,  peaceful  measures  against  slavery ; 
guns  and  bayonets  for  it ! 

Do  these  words  mean  that  ?  O  no  !  Go  with  me  to 
Madison,  in  September,  and  stand  before  that  beautiful 
Capitol  between  the  three  lakes,  and  you  will  hear  these 
same  lips  saying  :  — 

"  It  has  been  by  a  simple  rule  of  interpretation  I  have  studied 
the  Constitution  of  my  country.  That  rule  has  been  simply  this : 
that  by  no  word,  no  act,  no  combination  into  which  I  might 
enter,  should  any  one  human  being  of  all  the  generations  to 
which  I  belong,  much  less  any  class  of  human  beings  of  any 
nation,  race,  or  kindred,  be  oppressed  and  kept  down  in  the  least 
degree  in  their  efforts  to  rise  to  a  higher  state  of  liberty  and  hap 
piness.  Amid  all  the  glosses  of  the  times,  amid  all  the  essays 
and  discussions  to  which  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
has  been  subjected,  this  has  been  the  simple,  plain,  broad  light  in 
which  I  have  read  every  article  and  every  section  of  that  great 
instrument.  Whenever  it  requires  of  me  that  this  hand  shall 
keep  down  the  humblest  of  the  human  race,  then  I  will  lay  down 
power,  place,  position,  fame,  everything,  rather  than  adopt  such  a 
construction  or  such  a  rule.  If,  therefore,  in  this  land  there  are 
any  who  would  rise,  I  say  to  them,  in  God's  name,  good  speed ! 
If  there  are  in  foreign  lands  people  who  would  improve  their 
condition  by  emigration,  or  if  there  be  any  here  who  would  go 
abroad  in  search  of  happiness,  in  the  improvement  of  their  con 
dition,  or  in  their  elevation  toward  a  higher  state  of  dignity  and 
happiness,  they  have  always  had,  and  they  always  shall  have,  a 
cheering  word,  and  such  efforts  as  I  can  consistently  make  in 
their  behalf."  [Cheers.] 

That  is  good !  It  sounds  like  Kossuth  !  Now,  then, 
we  understand  him  fully.  He  will  never  help  a  slave- 


312  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

holder,  and  believe  all  races  equal.  Not  quite.  Is  he  in 
favor  of  complete  equality,  social  and  all  ?  Is  the  coun 
try  as  open  to  the  black  man  as  the  white  ?  O  no  ! 
In  February  last,  he  declared  that  the  man  who  said  so 
libelled  the  Republican  party  !  And  at  St.  Paul,  in  Sep 
tember,  he  bade  them  remember  this  was  the  country  of 
the  white  man  !  and  lets  them  understand  that  the  Re 
publican  party  opposes  only  the  .extension  of  slavery.  In 
1850,  he  declared  "  this  violation  of  the  Divine  law," 
which  he  calls  "  the  Constitution,"  —  this  "  compact 
which  no  Christian  state  would  ever  make,"  and  no 
Christian  man  could  ever  obey,  — "  the  only  just  and 
equal  government  that  ever  existed  !  no  other  govern 
ment  ever  could  be  so  wise,  just,  free,  and  equal !  "  And 
he  affirms  that  no  time  or  change  could  ever  produce  one 
more  beneficent  !  Last  Friday,  in  New  York,  he  said 
that  whoever  doubts  that  this  Constitution  ("  this  viola 
tion  of  the  Divine  law  ")  will  "  last  forever,  has  no  faith 
in  reason,  no  faith  in  justice,  no  faith  in  truth,  no  faith 
in  virtue"  !  If  this  be  so,  then  "violations  of  the  Divine 
law"  seem  about  as  eternal  as  the  Divine  law  itself;  and 
the  Italian  who  prayed,  "  Good  Lord,  good  Devil,"  was 
a  sensible  man,  and  was  only  laying  a  very  prudent  and 
necessary  anchor  to  the  windward  !  [Laughter  and 
applause.] 

At  Washington,  in  February,  he  thought  John  Brown 
"  was  misguided  and  desperate,"  and  "justly  hung."  He 
talks  of  "  social  horrors  "  and  "  disunion,"  and  irons  his 
face  out  to  portentous  length  and  sadness.  [Laughter.] 
But  at  Chicago,  in  September,  John  Brown,  he  says, 
"  was  the  only  one  man  [when  the  Missouri  Compromise 
was  repealed]  who  hoped  against  the  prevailing  demor 
alization,  and  cheered  and  sustained  me  [Mr.  Seward] 
through  it  1  "  And  at  St.  Paul,  he  snaps  his  fingers  at 
disunion,  and,  amid  shouts  of  derisive  laughter,  cries  out, 
"Who's  afraid?" 


LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.  313 

They  exhibited  at  the  Crystal  Palace,  in  1851,  a  Da 
mascus  blade,  so  flexible  that  it  could  be  placed  in  a  sheath, 
coiled  like  a  snake.  Something  like  it  seems  Mr.  Seward's 
conscience,  only  the  blade  boasted  it  could  lend.  Seward, 
after  coiling  in  and  out,  insists  on  our  believing  that  he 
never  bent  a  whit ! 

But  hear  him  now,  since  the  nomination  at  Chicago  ! 
See  the  lion  toss  his  free  limbs  on  the  prairie  I  Standing 
in  Kansas,  with  the  spirit  of  John  Brown  hovering  over 
him,  his  name  written  on  every  hill-top,  hear  the  old  Gov 
ernor  proclaim,  "  All  men  shall  have  the  ballot  or  none  ; 
all  men  shall  have  the  bullet  or  no-ne."  Crossing  into 
Missouri,  he  says,  the  principle  that  every  man  should 
own  the  soil  he  tills,  and  the  head  and  hands  he  works 
with,  "  is  going  through;  it  is  bound  to  go  through"; 
when  a  by-stander  said,  "  Not  here,"  he  retorted,  u  Yes, 
here.  As  it  is  has  gone  through  eighteen  States  of  the 
Union,  it  is  bound  to  go  through  the  other  fifteen.  It  is 
bound  to  go  through  all  of  the  thirty-three  States  of  the 
Union,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  is  going  through  the 
world."  [Prolonged  applause.] 

That  smacks  of  good  old-fashioned  John  Brown  and 
Garrison  Abolition,  —  not  non-extension  !  I  know  Mr. 
Everett  will  deem  such  words  very  indiscreet.  [Laugh 
ter.]  I  knew  an  old  lady  to  whom  a  friend  had  given  a 
nice  silk  umbrella.  She  had  kept  it  standing  in  a  corner 
twenty  years,  when  one  day  her  grandson  seized  it  to  go 
out.  "  You  're  not  going  to  take  that  out  in  the  wet !  " 
she  exclaimed.  "  Never,  while  I  live !  "  This  is  just 
like  Mr.  Everett's  free  speech,  always  laid  up  in  cotton  ! 
[Laughter  and  applause.] 

They  say,  if  you  stand  on  the  prairie  of  an  August  night 
at  full  moon,  you  can  hear  the  corn  grow,  so  quick  are 
nature's  processes  out  there.  Had  you  been  by  Governor 
Seward  that  day,  you  might  have  heard  him  grow.  [Loud 
applause.] 


314  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

And  as  Seward  grows,  so  grow  millions  of  others,  and 
so  the  world  moves.  "  The  sword,"  says  Victor  Hugo, 
"is  but  a  hideous  flash  in  the  darkness,  —  Right  is  an 
eternal  ray."  Wait !  Be  patient !  In  1760,  what  Bos 
ton  rebel  boys  felt,  James  Otis  spoke,  George  Washington 
achieved,  and  Everett  praises  to-day.  The  same  routine 
will  go  on.  What  fanatics  feel,  Garrison  prints,  some 
future  Seward  will  -achieve,  and,  at  the  safe  distance  of 
half  a  century,  some  courtly  Everett  will  embalm  in 
matchless  panegyrics.  [Cheers.] 

You  see  exactly  what  my  hopes  rest  upon.  Growth  ! 
The  Republican  party  have  undertaken  a  problem,  the 
solution  of  which  will  force  them  to  our  position.  Not 
Mr.  Se ward's  "  Union  and  Liberty,"  which  he  stole  and 
poisoned  from  Webster's  "Liberty  and  Union."  No; 
their  motto  will  soon  be,  "Liberty  first,"  a  long  pause, 
then  "  Union  afterwards."  [Applause  and  a  solitary 
hiss.] 

In  1842,  Lindley  had  finished  the  railway  at  Hamburg, 
and  was  to  open  it,  when  the  great  fire  broke  out.  The 
self-satisfied  citizens  called  the  Englishman  to  see  how  well 
their  six-penny  squirts  and  old  pails  could  put  out  the  fire. 
But  it  raged  on,  till  one  quarter  of  the  city  was  in  ruins. 
"  Mynherr  Lindley,  what  shall  we  do  ?  "  cried  the  fright 
ened  Senators  of  Hamburg.  "  Let  me  blow  up  a  couple 
of  streets,"  he  answered.  "  Never,  never,  never."  An 
other  day  of  flames.  "  Mynherr  Lindley,  blow  up  the 
streets  and  welcome,  only  save  us."  "  Too  late,"  replied 
the  engineer.  "  To  do  that,  I  must  blow  up  the  Senate- 
House  itself."  They  debated  an  hour,  and  then  said, 
"  Mynherr  Lindley,  save  us  in  your  own  way."  In  one 
hour,  the  Senate-House  was  in  ruins,  and  the  fire  ceased. 
"  Be  quiet,  Mr.  Garrison,"  said  1830.  "  Don't  you  see 
our  six-penny  Colonization  Society,  and  our  old-fashioned 
pails  of  church  resolves,  nicely  copied  and  laid  away  in 


LINCOLN'S  ELECTION.  315 

vestries  ?  See  how  we  '11  put  out  this  fire  of  slavery." 
But  it  burned  on  fiercer,  fiercer.  "  What  shall  we  do 
now  ?  "  asked  startled  Whiggery.  "  Keep  the  new  States 
free,  abolish  slavery  in  the  District,  shut  the  door  against 
Texas."  "Too  much,"  said  Whiggery;  "we  are  busy 
now  making  Webster  President,  and  proving  that  Mr. 
Everett  never  had  an  antislavery  idea."  But  the  flames 
roll  on.  Republicanism  proposes  to  blow  up  a  street  or 
two.  No,  no  ;  nothing  but  to  blow  up  the  Senate-House 
will  do ;  and  soon  frightened  Hamburg  will  cry,  "  Myn- 
herr  Garrison,  Mynherr  Garrison,  save  us  on  your  own 
terms  !  "  [Loud  applause.] 

You  perceive  my  hope  of  freedom  rests  on  these  rocks : 
1st,  mechanical  progress.  First  man  walked,  dug  the  earth 
with  his  hands,  ate  what  he  could  pick  up  ;  then  he  sub 
dues  the  horse,  invents  the  plough,  and  makes  the  water 
float  him  down  stream  ;  next  come  sails,  wind-mills,  and 
water-power ;  then  sewing-machines  lift  woman  out  of 
torture,  steam  marries  the  continents,  and  the  telegraph 
flashes  news  like  sunlight  over  the  globe.  Every  step 
made  hands  worth  less,  and  brains  worth  more  ;  and  that 
is  the  death  of  slavery.  You  can  make  apples  grow  one 
half  pippin  and  the  other  half  russet.  They  say  that  the 
Romans  could  roast  one  half  of  a  boar,  and  boil  the  other 
side.  [Laughter.]  But  I  am  sure  you  cannot  make  a 
nation  with  one  half  steamboats,  sewing-machines,  and 
Bibles,  and  the  other  half  slaves.  Then  another  rock  of 
my  hope  is  these  Presidential  canvasses,  —  the  sajiirjialia 
of  American  life,  —  when  slaves  like  Seward  are  unchained 
from  the  Senate-House,  as  of  old  in  Rome,  and  let  loose 
on  the  prairies,  to  fling  all  manner  of  insult  on  their  mas 
ters.  He  may  veil  it  all  hereafter  in  dignified  explana 
tions,  but  the  prairies  give  back  an  hundred-fold  for  all 
seed  dropped  there.  [Applause.]  Then  the  ghost  of 
John  Brown  makes  Virginia  quick  to  calculate  the  profit 


316  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

and  loss  of  slavery.  Beside  this,  honest  men,  few,  but  the 
salt  of  the  times,  and  school-houses  and  pulpits,  and  now 
and  then  a  stray  prince,  who,  looking  down  South,  de 
clines  to  venture  among  a  barbarous  people,  lest,  unlike 
St.  Paul's  case,  they  show  him  very  little  kindness.  So, 
with  trade,  art,  letters,  conscience,  fashion,  now  and  then 
a  college  redeemed  from  old  fogies,  now  and  then  a  saint, 
and  now  and  then  a  hero  lent  us  by  heaven,  we  may 
come  at  last  to  be  as  wise  as  Napoleon,  and  believe 
"  there  is  no  power  without  justice  "  ;  we  may  grow  to 
be  as  good  Christians  as  Cicero,  and  hold  that  "  baseness 
can  never  be  expedient "  ;  we  may  be  as  good  Protes 
tants  as  Tocqueville,  and  declare  that  "  whoever  IOVQS 
freedom  for  anything  but  freedom's  self,  is  made  to  be  a 
slave." 

It  is  indeed  cheering  to  notice  the  general  tone  of 
speaking  in  this  canvass ;  —  the  much  nobler  tone  of  Mr. 
Seward,  for  instance,  in  speaking  of  the  Union  on  the 
prairies,  than  it  used  to  be.  I  recollect  a  striking  picture 
he  drew  in  1850  of  the  value  of  the  Union,  and  every  line 
was  dollars!  "Amplitude  of  territory,"  increase  of  popu 
lation,  "  fields,  workshops,  ships,  mines,  the  plough,  loom, 
anvil,  canals,  railways,  steamboats,"  and  the  "navy,"  — 
all  earthborn.  Now  he  cries,  Whoever  says  trade  is  the 
cement  of  the  Union,  libels  the  idea  of  American  civiliza 
tion.  That  is  good  !  [Applause.] 

The  saddest  thing  in  the  Union  meetings  of  last  year 
was  the  constant  presence,  in  all  of  them,  of  the  clink  of 
coin,  —  the  whir  of  spindles,  —  the  dust  of  trade.  You 
would  have  imagined  it  was  an  insurrection  of  pedlers 
against  honest  men.  [Laughter.]  Mr.  Everett  at  Fan- 
euil  Hall,  when  he  sought  for  the  value  of  the  Union, 
could  only  bewail  the  loss  of  our  "commercial  inter 
course,"  the  certainty  of  "  hostile  tariffs,"  and  danger  to 
the  "  navy  "  !  And  this  is  literally  all  the  merits  of  the 


LINCOLN'S   ELECTION.  317 

Union  which  he  catalogues !  No ;  I  do  him  injustice. 
He  does  ask,  trembling,  in  case  of  disunion,  "  Where,  O 
where,  will  be  the  flag  of  the  United  States?"  Well,  I 
think  the  Historical  Society  had  better  take  it  for  their 
Museum.  [Laughter  and  applause.] 

Mr.  O'Connor,  too,  who  gave  the  key-note  to  the  New 
York  meeting.  The  only  argument  he  has  for  the  Union 
is  his  assurance  that,  if  we  dissolve,  there  '11  be  no  more 
u  marble  store  fronts  "  on  Broadway,  and  no  brown-stone 
palaces  in  the  Fifth  Avenue  !  Believe  me,  this  is  literally 
all  he  named,  except  one  which  Mr.  Everett  must  have 
been  under  the  influence  of  an  anodyne  to  have  forgotten, 
but  which,  perhaps,  it  is  better,  on  the  whole,  for  Mr. 
O'Connor,  being  an  Irishman,  to  recollect.  It  is  this :  in 
case  of  dissolving,  we  shall  no  longer  own  the  grave  of 
Washington,  which,  Mr.  Everett  having  paid  for,  the 
New  York  peddling  orator  finds  it  hard  to  lose  !  And  so 
it  strikes  me  ! 

But  I  must  confess,  those  pictures  of  the  mere  industrial 
value  of  the  Union  made  me  profoundly  sad.  I  look,  as, 
beneath  the  skilful  pencil,  trait  after  trait  leaps  to  glowing 
life,  and  ask  at  last,  Is  this  all  ?  Where  are  the  nobler 
elements  of  national  purpose  and  life  ?  Is  this  the  whole 
fruit  of  ages  of  toil,  sacrifice,  and  thought,  —  those  cunning 
fingers,  the  overflowing  lap,  labor  vocal  on  every  hillside, 
and  commerce  whitening  every  sea,  —  all  the  dower  of 
one  haughty,  overbearing  raco  '  The  zeal  of  the  Puritan, 
the  faith  of  the  Quaker,  a  century  of  Colonial  health,  and 
then  this  large  civilization,  does  it  result  only  in  a  work 
shop,  —  fops  melted  in  baths  and  perfumes,  and  men  grim 
with  toil  ?  Raze  out,  then,  the  Eagle  from  our  banner, 
and  paint  instead  Niagara  used  as  a  cotton-mill ! 

O  no !  not  such  the  picture  my  glad  heart  sees  when  I 
look  forward.  Once  plant  deep  in  the  nation's  heart  the 
love  of  right,  let  there  grow  out  of  it  the  firm  purpose  of 


318  LINCOLN'S  ELECTION. 

duty,  and  then  from  the  higher  plane  of  Christian  man 
hood  we  can  put  aside  on  the  right  hand  and  the  left  these 
narrow,  childish,  and  mercenary  considerations. 

"  Leave  to  the  soft  Campanian 

His  baths  and  his  perfumes ; 
Leave  to  the  sordid  race  of  Tyre 

Their  dyeing-vats  and  looms  ; 
Leave  to  the  sons  of  Carthage 

The  rudder  and  the  oar  ; 
Leave  to  the  Greek  his  marble  nympha, 

And  scrolls  of  wordy  lore  " ;  — 

but  for  us,  the  children  of  a  purer  civilization,  the  pioneers 
of  a  Christian  future,  it  is  for  us  to  found  a  Capitol  whose 
corner-stone  is  Justice,  and  whos'e  top-stone  is  Liberty; 
within  the  sacred  precincts  of  whose  Holy  of  Holies  dwell- 
eth  One  who  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  but  hath  made  of 
one  blood  all  nations  of  the  earth  to  serve  him.  Crowding 
to  the  shelter  of  its  stately  arches,  I  see  old  and  young, 
learned  and  ignorant,  rich  and  poor,  native  and  foreign, 
Pagan,  Christian,  and  Jew,  black  and  white,  IB  one  glad, 
harmonious,  triumphant  procession ! 

"  Blest  and  thrice  blest  the  Roman 

Who  sees  Rome's  brightest  day ; 
Who  sees  that  long  victorious  pomp 

Wind  down  the  sacred  way, 
And  through  the  bellowing  Forum, 
And  round  the  suppliant's  Grove, 
Up  to  the  everlasting  gates 
Of  Capitolian  Jovo  •  • 


MOBS  AND  EDUCATION. 


"  ON  Sunday  forenoon,"  says  the  Liberator  of  December  21,  1860, 
"  the  Twenty-Eighth  Congregational  Society  (Theodore  Parker's  Fra 
ternity)  held  their  usual  Sunday  meeting  in  Music  Hall.  It  having 
been  rumored  for  several  days  previous,  that  Mr.  Phillips  was  likely 
to  be  mobbed  and  assaulted,  a  large  detachment  of  police  was  in 
attendance  at  the  hall,  at  an  early  hour.  Before  the  services  com 
menced,  large  numbers  of  the  police  were  stationed  in  two  small 
rooms  adjoining  the  platform.  Others  were  stationed  in  various  parts 
of  the  hall,  and  building.  Members  of  the  detective  police  force  were 
also  present 

"  The  regular  religious  exercises  of  the  day  were  conducted  in  the 
usual  manner." 


I  WAS  present  here  last  Sunday,  and  noticed  that  some 
of  the  friends  of  the  speaker  expressed  their  sympathy 
with  his  sentiments  by  applause.  You  will  allow7  me  to 
request  that  to-day,  at  least,  we  preserve  the  usual  deco 
rum  of  this  place  and  this  hour,  and  listen  —  even  if  you 
should  like  anything  particularly  —  in  silence. 

About  a  fortnight  ago,  —  on  the  3d  of  this  month, — • 
certain  men,  supported  by  the  Mayor,  broke  up  an  anti 
slavery  meeting.  I  propose  to  consider  that  morning,  aa 
illustrating  American  education.  Some  of  you  may  think 
that  everybody  talks,  now,  of  slavery,  free  speech,  and  the 
negro.  That  is  true  ;  and  I  am  not  certain  that  the  long 
est  liver  of  you  all  will  ever  see  the  day  when  it  will  not 


320  MOBS   AND   EDUCATION. 

be  so.  The  negro  for  fifty,  or  thirty,  years  has  been  the 
basis  of  our  commerce,  the  root  of  our  politics,  the  pivot 
of  our  pulpit,  the  inspiration  of  almost  all  that  is  destined 
to  live  in  our  literature.  For  a  hundred  years,  at  least, 
our  history  will  probably  be  a  record  of  the  struggles  of  a 
proud  and  selfish  race  to  do  justice  to  one  that  circum 
stances  have  thrown  into  its  power.  The  effects  of  slavery 
will  not  vanish  in;  one  generation,  or  even  in  two.  It 
were  a  very  slight  evil,  if  they  could  be  done  away  with 
more  quickly. 

Fredrika  Brcmer  said,  the  fate  of  the  negro  is  the  ro 
mance  of  our  history.  It  will  probably  be  a  long  while,  a 
very  long  while,  before  the  needle  of  our  politics  will  float 
free  from  this  disturbance,  before  trade  will  cease  to  feel 
the  shock  of  this  agitation,  before  the  pulpit  can  throw 
off  vassalage  to  this  prejudice  and  property,  before  letters 
take  heart  and  dare  to  speak  the  truth.  A  bitter  preju 
dice  must  be  soothed,  a  bloody  code  repealed,  a  huckster 
ing  Constitution  amended  or  made  way  with,  social  and 
industrial  life  rearranged,  and  ministers  allowed  to  take 
the  Bible,  instead  of  the  Stock  List,  as  the  basis  of  their 
sermons.  Meanwhile,  you  must  expect  that  every  shock 
and  oscillation  of  the  stormy  elements  will  stir  up  the 
dregs  of  society,  lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort,  to  deeds 
of  anger  and  outrage  ;  and  meanwhile  every  honest  and 
earnest  man  will  speak,  and  every  such  man  will  be  glad 
to  hear,  as  occasion  calls,  of  this  the  great  duty  that  Provi 
dence  has  placed  in  our  hands. 

I  bate  no  jot  of  trust  that  this  noble  trial  of  self-govern 
ment  will  succeed.  Heirs  of  a  glorious  past,  we  have 
manhood  enough  to  be  the  'benefactors  of  the  future,  and 
to  hand  down  this  hard-earned  fabric,  freed  from  its  great 
est,  perhaps  its  only,  danger. 

The  planting  of  these  states  always  amazed  the  casual 
observer,  and  has  been  a  subject  of  the  deepest  interest  to 


MOBS   AND   EDUCATION.  321 

thoughtful  men  "  The  wildest  theories  of  the  human 
reason  were  reduced  to  practice  by  a  community  so  hum 
ble  that  no  statesman  condescended  to  notice  it,  and  a  legis 
lation  without  precedent  was  produced  off-hand  by  the 
instincts  of  the  people."  The  profoundest  scholar  of  that 
day  said,  "  No  man  is  wiser  for  his  learning,"  —  a  sentiment 
which  Edmund  Burke  almost  echoed ;  and  it  seems  as  if 
our  comparatively  unlettered  fathers  proved  it.  They 
framed  a  government  which,  after  two  hundred  years,  is 
still  the  wonder  and  the  study  of  statesmen.  It  was  only 
another  proof  that  governments  are  not  made,  they  grow, 
that  the  heart  is  the  best  logician,  that  character,  which  is 
but  cousin  to  instinct,  is  a  better  guide  than  philosophy. 
Wordsworth  said,  of  a  similar  awakening  : 

"  A  few  strong  instincts,  and  a  few  plain  rules, 
Among  the  herdsmen  of  the  Alps,  have  wrought 
More  for  mankind,  at  this  unhappy  day, 
Than  all  the  pride  of  intellect  and  thought." 

That  sunrise  has  colored  the  whole  morning  of  our  his 
tory.  It  is  the  cardinal  principle  of  our  national  life,  that 
God  has  given  every  man  sense  enough  to  manage  his 
own  affairs.  Out  of  that,  by  a  short  process,  come  uni 
versal  suffrage  and  the  eligibility  of  every  man  to  office. 
The  majority  rules,  and  law  rests  on  numbers,  not  on 
intellect  or  virtue.  A  sound  rule,  and,  if  not  the  only  one 
consistent  with  freedom  and  progress,  at  least  the  one  that 
best  serves  these.  But  the  harm  is,  that,  while  theoreti 
cally  holding  that  no  vote  of  the  majority  can  authorize 
injustice,  we  practically  consider  public  opinion  the  real 
test  of  what  is  true  and  what  is  false ;  and  honce,  as  a 
result,  the  fact  which  Tocqueville  has  noticed,  that  prac 
tically  our  institutions  protect,  not  the  interests  of  the 
whole  community,  but  the  interests  of  the  majority. 
Every  man  knows  best  how  to  manage  his  own  affairs. 
Simple  statement,  perfectly  sound;  but  we  mix  it  up 

21 


322  MOBS   AND  EDUCATION. 

somehow  with  that  other  rule,  that  every  man  is  eligible 
to  office,  and  then  we  hurry  on  to  the  habit  of  considering 
every  man  competent  for  everything.  Does  a  man  achieve 
success  in  some  particular  point,  we  hail  him  a  universal 
Crichton,  and  endow  him  with  a  genius  for  all  work.  A 
mechanic  invents  a  new  stitch  in  a  carpet-web ;  straight 
way  he  is  named  for  Congress.  Does  a  man  edit  a  Re 
spectable  Daily  to  bankruptcy,  we  put  him  on  a  commission 
to  choose  for  us  water  not  fit  to  drink,  or  let  him  carry  a 
railroad  half-way  to  ruin,  by  paying  dividends  that  were 
never  earned.  That  militia  colonel  survived  a  Western 
brawl,  —  call  it  a  battle  and  a  victory,  and  choose  him 
President  at  once.  This  man  is  a  brilliant  historian,  — 
send  him  Ambassador  to  England.  Another  has  argued 
ably  an  india-rubber  case,  —  send  him  to  fade  out  in  the 
Senate.  Does  a  man  fail  utterly,  —  a  bankrupt  poet  or 
office-seeker,  —  he  edits  a  newspaper.  We  lack,  entirely, 
discrimination.  Because  a  man  is  entitled  to  draw  upon 
us  for  fifty  dollars,  we  put  a  thousand  to  his  credit.  That 
a  man  edits  the  Tribune  so  as  to  pay,  —  no  very  high 
order  of  talent,  —  is  no  proof  that  he  knows  better  than 
other  men  who  should  be  President  of  the  United  States. 
Bayard  Taylor  may  be  a  genius  and  a  traveller,  without 
the  least  trace  of  patriotism  or  the  least  spark  of  a  gentle 
man.  A  hundred  years  ago,  you  must  have  served  an 
apprenticeship  of  seven  years  to  make  a  shoe ;  now  talk 
seven  months  on  the  right  side,  you  may  be  Governor  of  a 
State. 

I  said  that,  in  spite  of  the  heedlessness  and  good  nature 
of  this  mistake,  the  rule  that  every  man  should  be  eligible 
to  office  is  the  best  rule  you  can  have.  Our  large  measure 
of  national  success,  in  spite  of  this  heedlessness,  shows  how 
truly  the  Swede  spoke  when  he  said,  Quantula  sapientia 
regitur  mundus, —  uHow  little  wit  it  takes  to  hold  office  !  " 
But,  though  life  be  long  and  sunny,  one  fit  of  severe  ill 


MOBS   AND  EDUCATION.  323 

ness  is  a  great  evil.  It  is  quite  true,  that  routine  incapa 
city  stumbles  along  very  well  at  common  times  ;  but  there 
come  hours  when  we  need  a  pilot,  and  then  we  suffer. 
Such  an  hour  we  have  just  passed  through. 

Certain  men,  who  seem  utterly  ignorant  of  the  principle, 
that  only  by  letting  each  man  speak  exactly  what  he  sees 
fit,  at  the  time  he  chooses,  can  the  progress  of  truth  be 
secured,  attempted  to  put  down  certain  other  men,  assem 
bled  to  discuss  the  abolition  of  slavery.  I  want  to  look  at 
that  attempt  as  illustrating  the  ignorance  of  the  actors,  the 
ignorance  of  the  press,  and  the  incapacity  of  the  city  gov 
ernment.  And  I  take  this  subject  specially  because  it 
enables  me  to  lay  before  you  a  correct  account  of  the 
course  of  events  that  morning,  which  no  journal  of  the 
city  has  bestirred  itself  to  procure.  And  I  seize  this,  the 
first  opportunity  given  me,  to  do  justice  to  "both  parties, 
—  the  assailants  and  the  assailed. 

Look  first  at  the  press.  With  the  exception  of  The 
Atlas  and  Bee,  no  one  of  the  daily  papers  has  uttered  one 
word  of  hearty,  fitting  rebuke  of  the  mob.  They  have  all 
serious  objections  to  mobs  in  the  abstract,  but  none  at  all 
to  mobs  in  the  street,  none  to  this  particular  mob.  This 
was  not  a  case  of  virtuous  men  refusing  to  obey  a  bad  law, 
of  whom  it  has  been  well  said,  "  They  do  not  dispute  the 
right  of  the  majority  to  command,  they  only  appeal  from 
the  sovereignty  of  the  nation  to  the  sovereignty  of  man 
kind."  But  this  was  a  blow  at  the  right  of  free  speech,  a 
right  which  no  sane  man  in  our  age  and  land  denies.  Yet 
you  have  still  to  read  the  first  word  of  fitting,  fearless, 
hearty  rebuke,  from  the  Boston  daily  press,  of  a  mob, 
well  dressed,  met  to  crush  free  speech.  I  have  known 
Boston  for  thirty  years.  I  have  seen  many  mobs.  With 
one  exception,  I  have  yet  to  see  the  first  word  of  honest 
rebuke,  from  the  daily  press,  of  a  well-dressed  mob  met  to 
crush  honest  men  ;  and  that  exception  was  the  Boston 


324  MOBS  AND  EDUCATION. 

Daily  Advocate  of  Mr.  Hallett,  in  1835  and  1837.  Let 
me  say,  in  passing,  that  it  is  a  singular  result  of  our  insti 
tutions,  that  we  have  never  had  in  Boston  any  but  well- 
dressed  mohs.  Still  they  are  dangerous  precedents, — 
well-dressed  men  hire  hungry  mechanics  to  mob  free 
speech.  Beware !  such  men  may  "  better  the  instruc 
tion."  The  "  flour  mobs "  followed  close  on  the  pro- 
slavery  mobs  in  New  York.  But  such  a  press,  —  what 
a  tool,  what  a  despicable  tool ! 

The  press  will  think  me  unjustifiable,  perhaps,  for  they 
affect  to  have  discovered  that  there  was  no  mob,  only  the 
majority  taking  rightful  possession  of  a  public  meeting. 
We  will  consider  that  by  and  by. 

The  press  says  the  mob  was  composed  of  "  Boston  gen 
tlemen."  A  very  natural  mistake  for  a  press  which  does 
not  know  a  mob  when  it  sees  it.  But  can  we  let  that 
description  stand  ?  Broadcloth  and  fine  linen  do  not  make 
a  gentleman  !  Ill  manners  and  ignorance  do  not  make 
one.  Earning  a  right  to  twelve  months  in  the  House  of 
Correction  does  not  make  one.  [Laughter.]  Resisting 
the  laws  to  help  the  stock  market  does  not.  Running, 
before  you  are  sent,  with  volunteer  haste,  to  do  the  dirty 
work  of  base  men,  does  not  make  one.  And  yet  these  are 
the  only  colors  by  which  men  before  unseen  made  them 
selves  visible  that  day  on  the  surface  of  affairs.  One  must 
be  born  again  into  the  Kingdom  of  Mammon,  before  he 
thinks  such  men  gentlemen.  And  as  the  ringleaders  were 
not  born  in  Boston,  let  us  save  the  dear  old  town  from  the 
disgrace  of  having  them  called  Boston  gentlemen.  The 
gossip  of  the  street  says  they  were  excusable  on  account 
of  pecuniary  losses,  —  they  were  men  out  of  employ.  The 
ringleader  said  he  came  there  to  save  his  property.  Let 
us  examine  of  what  material  the  mob  was  really  made. 
We  have  a  right  to  inquire,  it  is  important  we  should 
know,  who  make  up  this  Chamber  of  Inquisitors,  this  new 


MOBS  AND  EDUCATION.  325 

Star-Chamber,  which  undertakes  to  tell  us,  as  Archbishop 
Laud  and  Charles  Stuart  told  our  fathers,  what  creed  we 
shall  hold,  and  what  public  meetings  we  shall  attend. 
Who  were  they? 

Weak  sons  of  moderate  fathers,  dandled  into  effeminacy, 
of  course  wholly  unfit  for  business.  But  overflowing  trade 
sometimes  laps  up  such,  as  it  does  all  obtainable  instru 
ments.  Instead  of  fire-engines,  we  take  pails  and  dippers, 
in  times  of  sore  need.  But  such  the  first  frost  nips  into 
idleness.  Narrow  men,  ambitious  of  office,  fancying  that 
the  inheritance  of  a  million  entitles  them  to  political  ad 
vancement.  Bloated  distillers,  some  rich,  some  without 
wit  enough  to  keep  the  money  they  stole.  Old  families 
run  to  seed  in  respectable  dulness,  — fruges  consumers 
nati,  —  born  only  to  eat.  Trading  families,  in  the  third 
generation,  playing  at  stock-jobbing  to  lose  in  State  Street 
what  their  fathers  made  by  smuggling  in  India.  Sweep 
in  a  hundred  young  rogues,  the  grief  of  mothers  and  the 
disgrace  of  their  names,  good  as  naughts  to  fill  up  a  place 
in  what  is  called  "  society,"  and  entitled  as  such  to  shrink 
from  notice,  —  but  the  motes  we  do  not  usually  see  get 
looked  at  when  they  trouble  our  eyes.  Snobbish  sons  of 
fathers  lately  rich,  anxious  to  show  themselves  rotten  be 
fore  they  are  ripe.  [Hitherto  there  had  been  no  demon 
strations  from  the  hearers,  except  occasional  suppressed 
laughter  at  the  speaker's  sarcasms.  The  laughter  here 
was  received  with  hisses  by  a  portion  of  the  audience.] 
These,  taking  courage  from  the  presence  of  bolder  rogues, 
some  from  jail  and  others  whom  technical  skill  saved 
therefrom,  —  the  whole  led  by  a  third-rate  lawyer  broken 
down  to  a  cotton-clerk  [hisses],  borrowing  consequence 
from  married  wealth,  —  not  one  who  ever  added  a  dollar, 
much  less  an  idea,  to  the  wealth  of  the  city,  not  one  able 
to  give  a  reason  or  an  excuse  for  the  prejudice  that  is  in 
him,  —  these  are  the  men,  this  is  the  house  of  nobles, 


326  MOBS   AND  EDUCATION. 

whose  leave  we  are  to  ask  before  we  speak  and  hold  meet 
ings.  These  are  the  men  who  tell  us,  the  children  of  the 
Pilgrims,  the  representatives  of  Endicott  and  Winthrop, 
of  Sewall  and  Quincy,  of  Hancock  and  Adams  and  Otis, 
what  opinions  we  shall  express,  and  what  meetings  we 
shall  hold  !  These  are  the  men  who,  the  press  tells  us, 
being  a  majority,  took  rightful  possession  of  the  meeting 
of  the  3d  of  December,  [applause  and  cries  of  "  Good,"] 
and,  "  without  violating  the  right  of  free  speech,"  organized 
it,  and  spoke  the  sober  sense  of  Boston  ! 

I  propose  to  examine  the  events  of  that  morning,  in 
order  to  see  what  idea  our  enlightened  press  entertain  of 
the  way  in  which  "  gentlemen  "  take  possession  of  a 
meeting,  and  the  fitness  of  those  "gentlemen"  to  take 
possession  of  a  meeting. 

On  the  3d  of  December,  certain  gentlemen  —  Rev.  J. 
Sella  Martin, .  James  Redpath,  Mr.  Eldridge,  Mr.  O'Con 
nor,  Mr.  Le  Barnes — hired  the  Temple  for  a  Convention 
to  assemble  at  their  request.  The  circular  which  they 
issued  a  month  before,  in  November,  invited  the  "  leaders 
and  representatives  of  all  the  antislavery  bodies,  and  those 
who  have  done  honor  to  their  own  souls  by  the  advocacy 
of  human  freedom,"  to  meet  them  in  convention.  Cer 
tainly  the  fops  and. the  clerks  of  Boston  could  not  come 
under  that  description.  The  notice  published  the  day 
before  proclaimed  that  the  convention  "  was  not  met  for 
debate,  that  each  speaker  should  confine  himself  to  giving, 
briefly,  his  views  on  the  question,  4  How  shall  American 
slavery  be  abolished  ?  '  Does  Mr.  Fay,  or  any  one  of  his 
associates,  dare  to  say,  in  the  presence  of  the  citizens  of 
Boston,  that  he  entered  that  hall  to  join  in  good  faith  in 
any  such  investigation  ?  The  temper  and  quality  of  the 
meeting  was  shown  by  the  statement  of  that  notice,  that 
it  chose  the  anniversary  of  the  "  martyrdom "  of  John 
Brown  as  the  day  for  its  meeting,  and  mentioning  his 


<r/fr    ; 

'  .» 

MOBS   AND   EDUCATION.  327 

death  as  "  too  glorious  to  need  defence  or  eulogyv^J^ 
any  one  of  Mr.  Fay's  associates  entered  that  hall  with 
written  resolutions  in  their  pockets,  denouncing  John 
Brown  and  expressing  "  horror  for  his  piratical,  bloody, 
and  nefarious  attempt,"  by  what  claim,  as  gentlemen,  do 
they  justify  their  presence  there  ? 

But  waive  that,  and  grant  that  they  were  rightfully 
present.  When  a  convention  assembles  at  the  call  of  a 
committee  of  gentlemen,  it  is  a  well-recognized  and  settled 
right  and  custom  of  the  callers  to  organize  that  conven 
tion  through  a  committee,  or  otherwise  to  appoint  officers 
for  the  body.  If  the  committee  report  a  list,  it  is  some 
times  put  to  vote,  and  sometimes  not.  When  a  vote  is 
taken,  it  is  mere  form  ;  for  all  well-disposed  men,  if  they 
contest  a  convention,  uniformly  leave  it  the  right  to  or 
ganize  itself,  and  meet  it,  if  anywhere,  on  the  passage  of 
its  resolutions.  In  conformity  with  this  custom,  the  Rev. 
J.  Sella  Martin  took  the  floor  as  temporary  Chairman. 
He  appointed  a  committee  to  appoint  officers.  That  com 
mittee  reported  a  list,  with  Mr.  Sanborn  of  Concord  as 
Chairman.  Mr.  Martin  announced  him,  as  he  had  an  en 
tire,  well-recognized  right  to  do.  for  the  Chairman  of  that 
meeting. 

But  suppose  the  Convention  chose  to  insist  on  its  strict 
right,  and  to  organize  itself  without  regard  to  its  callers. 
Then  it  was  perfectly  in  order  for  any  member  to  address 
the  temporary  chair,  and  make  a  motion  to  that  effect.  Did 
any  one  do  it  ?  No.  On  the  contrary,  one  person,  who 
seems  to  shrink  from  having  his  name  known,  nominated 
Mr.  Richard  S.  Fay  as  chairman  ["  Good  !  "  cheers  and 
hisses],  and  put  the  motion.  This  anonymous  skulker 
does  not  seem  to  know  parliamentary  law  enough  to  re 
member  that  he  should  address  the  chair,  or  that  he 
should  wait  to  have  his  motion  seconded ;  but  without 
that,  and  without  any  call  for  the  nays,  Mr.  Fay  assumes 


328  MOBS  AND  EDUCATION. 

to  be  Chairman.  There  having  been,  then,  in  the  eye  of 
strict  parliamentary  law,  no  motion,  —  for  all  the  books  lay 
it  down  that  "  no  motion  can  be  made  without  addressing 
the  chair,"  —  there  having  been  no  motion,  no  seconding, 
no  call  for  the  nays,  there  being  no  announcement  of  the 
vote,  either  by  the  Chairman  or  by  Mr.  Anonymous,  when 
Mr.  Richard  S.  Fay  walked  to  that  platform  and  assumed 
to  be  Chairman,  he  announced  himself  the  ringleader  of  a 
mob  [applause,  and  one  cry  of  "  No !  "]  by  the  strictest 
letter  of  parliamentary  law.  Journals  which  undertake  to 
know,  style  him  the  rightful  Chairman.  And  when  Mr. 
Douglass,  in  common  courtesy,  handed  him  a  glass  of 
water,  Mr.  Fay  says,  "  This  acknowledges  me  as  Chair 
man  !  "  Profound  logician,  this  Mr.  Fay  !  A  glass  of 
water  is  his  title  to  office,  and  Mr.  Frederick  Douglass  is 
authorized  to  confer  it. 

And  then  commences  an  exhibition  of  his  wonderful 
powers  as  a  presiding  officer.  The  moment  a  chairman 
takes  his  seat,  the  first  duty  is  the  call  for  the  appointment 
of  secretary  and  other  officers.  This  wonderful  meeting 
had  no  officer,  except  its  equally  wonderful  Chairman. 
Unburdening  himself  of  his  coat,  he  was  not  self-possessed 
enough  to  find  in  his  pocket  the  scroll  of  resolutions  which 
every  one  saw  protruding  from  it,  —  whereupon  he  said. 
"  I  thought  I  had  got  among  honest  men."  Some  by 
standers  thought  this  insolence.  I  am  rather  inclined  to 
believe  it  possible,  that,  having  escaped  from  the  mob  to 
our  platform,  he  was  congratulating  himself  upon  having 
gotten  for  once  among  honest  men.  [Much  laughter.] 
He  then  undertakes  to  read  the  resolutions,  and  offer  them 
to  the  Convention,  ignorant  again  —  ignorant  again  — 
that  there  was  just  one  man  in  that  meeting,  and  only  one, 
who  had  no  right  to  offer  a  resolution,  and  that  was  him 
self,  on  his  own  theory ;  for  every  boy  knows,  except  this 
young  cotton-clerk,  that  no  presiding  officer  is  entitled  to 
offer  a  resolution. 


MOBS  AND  EDUCATION.  329 

Following,  then,  the  example  of  Mr.  Anonymous,  who 
nominated  him,  he  does  not  wait  to  have  the  resolutions 
seconded,  he  does  not  call  for  the-  nays,  but  he  declares 
them  carried.  This  could  not  have  been  fright,  for  al 
though  he  was  observed  to  tremble  and  grow  pale  when 
hundreds  cried  out  "  Shame  ! "  at  the  reading  of  his 
third  and  fourth  resolves,  yet  some  one  saying,  "  Don't 
be  frightened,  we  won't  hurt  you,"  had  considerably  re 
assured  him.  [Laughter.]  Then  somebody  makes  a  mo 
tion  to  adjourn.  Mr.  Fay  puts  it.  While  he  is  doing  so, 
Mr.  Frederick  Douglass  addresses  him.  He  turns,  intro 
duces  Mr.  Douglass  to  the  audience,  and  gives  him  the 
floor,  ignorant  again  —  ignorant  again  —  that  a  motion  to 
adjourn  is  not  debatable.  Some  one  in  the  audience, 
while  Mr.  Douglass  is  speaking,  reminds  him  there  is  a 
motion  before  the  house.  This  vigilant  Chairman  waves 
the  speaker  aside,  puts  the  motion  to  adjourn,  declares  it 
carried,  and  then  introduces  Mr.  Douglass  again  to  this 
adjourned  Convention,  and  bids  him  remember  the  rule  of 
the  call,  to  speak  briefly,  and  to  the  point !  [Great  laugh 
ter.]  And  then  this  adjourned  Chairman  of  a  dead  Con 
vention  sits  and  listens  half  an  hour  to  a  speech  from  Mr. 
Douglass.  Whereafter,  another  man  makes  a  motion  to 
adjourn  ;  he  puts  it,  declares  it  carried,  and  then,  —  on 
the  poet's  principle,  "twice  he  slew  the  slain,"  —  recog 
nizing,  I  suppose,  that  even  his  mob,  twice  adjourned,  is 
done  with,  takes  his  hat  and  vanishes,  —  this  orderly  Chair 
man  ! 

Common  chairmen,  before  quitting  their  conventions, 
appoint  a  committee  of  finance,  to  see  that  the  expenses 
are  paid  ;  but  this  opulent  and  magnanimous,  Union-loving 
Chairman,  [cheers  and  some  hisses,]  having  announced 
that  he  came  to  the  hall  to  save  his  property,  does  it  by 
leaving  his  victims  to  pay  the  expenses.  [Laugh ter.j 
And  when  Mr.  Hayes  reminded  him,  during  the  pendency 


330  MOBS   AND   EDUCATION. 

of  the  motion  to  adjourn,  that  he  must  not  do  so  until  he 
had  arranged  for  the  payment  for  the  hall,  this  representa 
tive  of  State  Street  defied  Mr.  Hayes  to  compel  him  to 
pay  for  the  hall  he  had  used.  I  hlush,  even  for  State 
Street,  under  such  a  fact.  And  the  gallant  men  who 
followed  him  —  O  shame  even  to  Boston  dandies  !  —  were 
heard  encouraging  each  other  with  cries  of  "  The  police 
are  with  us,  —  the  other  side  pay  for  them,  and  we  use 
them!" 

Some  men  assert  that  Mr.  Fay  really  came  to  that  hall 
to  put  down  free  speech  hy  violence.  As  it  was  said  that 
no  man  was  ever  so  wise  as  Lord  Thurlow  looked,  so  these 
citizens  think  no  honest  man  was  ever  so  ignorant  as  Mr. 
Fay  appeared.  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  he  came 
there  designing  to  crush  that  Convention  in  a  parliamen 
tary  way,  but  did  not  know  how  to  do  it.  Like  the  captain 
of  the  Maine  schooner  caught  in  our  harbor  narrows  [here 
a  youth  in  the  gallery  raised  the  mob  cry,  "  All  up,"  which 
failed,  however,  to  produce  any  sensation],  who,  when 
some  one  asked,  "Who  captains  this  schooner?"  called 
back,  "  I  undertook  to  captain  her,  but  find  it  rather  too 
much  for  me";  —  so  Mr.  Fay  undertook  to  captain  a  par 
liamentary  mob,  but  found  it  rather  too  much  for  him. 
Being  fully  determined,  however,  to  crush  the  Convention, 
and  finding  the  quiet  and  trained  friends  of  it  able  to  out 
wit  and  outgeneral  him,  he  took  refuge  in  violence.  He 
challenged  his  opponent  to  a  duel,  then  knocked  him  over 
the  head  with  the  but  of  his  pistol  while  his  back  was 
turned.  Lord  George  Bentinck  leaped  from  the  sporting- 
field  and  the  race-course  to  the  leadership  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  Perhaps  Mr.  Fay  thought  he  could  do  as 
much. 

After  the  kid-gloved  mobocrat  had  left  the  hall,  Mr. 
Sanborn,  quietly  requesting  the  real  friends  of  order  to 
remain  seated  while  the  mob  followed  its  leader,  showed 


MOBS   AND   EDUCATION-  331 

them  that  all  their  labor  had  been  in  vain.  Then  Mr.  J. 
Murray  Howe,  without  any  flimsy  veil  of  parliamentary 
pretext,  a  bully  girdled  by  bullies,  failing  to  excite  any 
violent  resistance,  urged  or  incited  the  police  to  arrest  all 
whom  his  followers  struck,  on  the  ground  of  removing  the 
cause  of  the  disturbance.  And  the  shameless  Mayor  closed 
the  scene  [hisses],  —  the  plot  unmasked  by  the  quiet  dis 
cipline  of  the  friends  of  order  was  disclosed,  and  the  City . 
Government  succored  its  defeated  accomplices  by  clearing 
the  hall  in  the  prostituted  names  of  law  and  order.  [Loud 
cheers  and  some  hisses.] 

I  have  named  only  the  leaders  of  this  mob,  and  described 
the  pitiful  quality  of  their  followers.  You  will  ask  me,  How 
did  such  a  mass  influence  the  Mayor  ?  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
that  among  that  crowd  were  men  influential  by  wealth  and 
position,  men  seldom  seen  in  an  antislavery  meeting,  whose 
presence  there  at  that  unusual  hour,  —  ten  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  —  sitting  in  silence,  was  an  encouragement  to 
their  personal  friends,  the  mob.  You  may  see,  still  look 
ing  down  on  Washington  Street,  the  gilded  names  of  Law 
rence  and  Dickinson,  and,  side  by  side,  the  proud  motto, 
"  The  Union,  the  Constitution,  the  Enforcement  of  the 
Laws."  [Cheers.]  One  of  those  names,  which  the  city 
has  hitherto  loved  to  honor,  was  present  in  that  crowd,  in 
a  class  of  meetings  where  he  is  seldom  seen,  —  never  at 
ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  —  while  his  personal  friends 
resisted,  with  the  encouragement  of  his  unusual  presence, 
the  enforcement  of  the  most  sacred  of  all  laws,  that  of  free 
speech.  Need  I  explain  any  otherwise  the  servility  of  the 
Mayor  ? 

Some  men  say  that  free  speech  was  really  crushed  out 
on  that  occasion.  No.  On  that  same  day,  that  same  meet 
ing  held  a  session,  addressed  by  the  most  hated  of  its 
speakers,  expressing  their  opinions  on  slavery  and  the 
scene  of  the  morning.  The  exact,  literal  truth  is,  that 


332  MOBS  AND  EDUCATION. 

Mr.  Richard  S.  Fay  stole  the  Tremont  Temple  from  those 
who  had  hired  it.  Let  us  hope  he  will  pay  his  debts  with 
out  going  through  court.  Those  men  whom  he  fought  can 
say  they  were  never  sued  yet  for  any  hall  they  had  used  ; 
he  cannot  say  as  much  to-day.  Doubtless  they  intended 
to  crush  free  speech  ;  but  do  not  let  us  dignify  Jack  Shep- 
pard  and  Dickens's  Fagin  into  Cromwells  and  Bonapartes. 
These  mobocrats  intended  to  be  Cromwells.  So  did  the 
two  tailors  who  undertook  to  tear  down  the  throne  of 
George  III.,  and  issued  the  famous  proclamation,  "  We, 
the  people  of  England."  History  does  not  record  that 
they  succeeded  ;  neither  did  their  imitators  on  the  3d  of 
December.  Still,  these  angry  and  misguided  men  in 
curred  very  grave  responsibility.  Stealing  a  hall  is  not 
very  bad  in  men  who  hardly  know  what  they  are  about. 
Violating  the  rights  of  your  neighbors  may  be  forgiven, 
when  the  parties  offending  will  soon  repent,  and  those 
rights  are  no  more  affected  than  the  sun  by  the  cloud  that 
passes  over  him.  But  when  Mr.  Fay  had  housed  himself 
in  luxury  and  quiet,  at  night,  that  lawless  and  coward 
spirit  which  he  had  stirred  up  and  let  loose  broke  into  the 
houses  of  our  hated  and  friendless  colored  people,  pursued 
any  one  of  them  it  dared  follow,  finding  him  alone,  cruelly 
beat,  almost  to  death,  several,  and  ill-treated  many  of  them. 
If  any  one  of  those  mangled  men  had  died  of  his  wounds, 
Richard  S.  Fay,  in  the  sight  of  God  and  all  honest  men, 
if  not  of  the  law  also,  had  been  a  murderer.  The  atone 
ment  he  owes  to  our  city  which  he  has  disgraced,  is  a  pub 
lic  acknowledgment  of  his  crime.  The  compensation  he 
owes  to  those  men  pillaged  and  beaten  by  his  followers,  is 
to  see  that,  so  far  as  gold  can,  their  sufferings  are  allevi 
ated.  Let  us  hope  that  the  wealth  and  the  influence 
which  countenanced  his  wrong  will  move  to  aid  him  in  his 
repentance. 

The  picture  is  one  of  men  undertaking  work  for  which 


MOBS  AND  EDUCATION.  333 

their  education  never  fitted  them,  —  a  common  mistake  of 
American  life.  There  are  thousands  among  us  engaged 
in  mechanical  routine  whose  souls  have  large  grasp,  and 
take  in  the  universe.  Critical  hours  unveil  the  lustre  of 
such  spirits.  Our  self-made  men  are  the  glory  of  our  in 
stitutions.  But  this  is  a  case  of  men  undertaking  to  join 
in  public  debate  and  preside  over  public  meetings,  whose 
souls  are  actually  absorbed  in  pricing  calico  and  adding  up 
columns  of  figures.  It  is  a  singular  sight.  White  men, 
having  enjoyed  the  best  book  education,  to  see  them  strug- 
ling  with  two  colored  men,  whose  only  education  was  op 
pression  and  the  antislavery  enterprise  !  But  in  that  con 
test  of  parliamentary  skill,  the  two  colored  men  never  made 
a  mistake,  while  every  step  of  their  opponents  was  folly 
upon  folly.  Of  course,  upon  the  great  question  of  moral 
right,  there  is  no  comparison.  History  gives  us  no  closer 
parallel  than  the  French  Convention  of  Lafayette  and 
Mirabeau  assailed  by  the  fish-women  of  the  streets. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  part  of  the  City  Government. 
Every  man  eligible  to  office,  —  but  with  a  race  like  ours, 
fired  with  the  love  of  material  wealth,  with  a  continent 
given  us  by  God  to  subdue  and  crowd  it  with  cities,  to 
unite  the  oceans  with  rails,  —  in  such  an  age  and  with 
such  a  race,  trade  must  absorb  all  the  keenest  energies  of 
each  generation.  The  consequence  is,  that  politics  takes 
up  with  small  men,  men  without  grasp  enough  for  large 
business ;  with  leisure,  therefore,  on  their  hands ;  men 
popular  because  they  have  no  positive  opinions,  —  these 
are  the  men  of  politics.  The  result  is,  as  Tocqueville 
has  hinted,  that  our  magistrates  never  have  more  edu 
cation  than  we  give  to  the  mass,  that  they  have  no 
personal  experience  of  their  own.  Such  men  do  very 
well  for  ordinary  occasions,  when-  there  is  nothing  to 
do.  Common  times  only  try  common  men.  In  a  calm 
sea  all  boats  alike  show  mastership  in  floating.  On  the 


334  MOBS   AND  EDUCATION. 

3d  day  of  the  month,  we  might  have  supposed  every  man 
to  know  that  a  meeting  was  to  he  protected  against  a 
mob,  that  the  duty  of  the  police  was  not  to  settle  disputed 
questions  and  motions,  but  only  to  see  that  they  were 
argued  out  without  violence,  —  that  they  were  there  to 
arrest  any  man  who  committed  an  assault.  The  absurdity 
of  turning  the  Convention  out  of  doors  to  quiet  its  tumult, 
is  the  method  of  a  quack  who  stabs  his  patient  in  order 
to  cure  the  disease. 

But  our  Mayor,  poor  as  he  is,  did  know  all  this.  He 
was  awed  out  of  his  duty  by  the  social  position  of  the 
mobocrats.  The  individual  policemen  were  respectable 
and  orderly,  evidently  disposed  to  enforce  order,  had  they 
been  allowed.  No  complaint  can  be  made  of  them.  But 
we  know  neither  them  nor  their  chief.  For  us,  the  Mayor 
represents  the  City  Government.  I  hold  him,  single  and 
alone,  responsible  for  the  success  of  the  mob.  [Slight 
hissing.]  Abolitionists  are  the  best  judges  ;  they  have 
been  through  many  such  a  scene.  They  assert  that,  if 
they  could  have  been  left  alone,  they  could  have  quelled 
that  mob,  unaided.  [Derisive  laughter.]  Mr.  Hayes,  of 
the  Temple,  the  most  competent  witness  in  the  city, 
offered  the  Mayor,  on  the  spot,  to  keep  order  within  the 
building  if  he  could  be  allowed  six  men  ;  and  he  has 
publicly  avowed  his  belief,  that,  had  the  chief  simply  an 
nounced,  from  the  platform,  his  purpose  to  keep  order  im 
partially,  order  would  have  reigned  ;  but  the  mob  knew  that 
the  police,  in  spite  of  their  individual  feelings,  must  obey 
orders,  and  were  therefore,  of  course,  on  the  mob  side. 
The  rioters  were  constantly  boasting,  "  The  police  are  all 
right,"  "  They  are  with  us,"  "  Three  cheers  for  the  po 
lice  !  "  [Cheers  and  hisses.] 

To  the  courtesy  and  forbearance  of  the  Abolitionists  the 
Chief  of  Police  has  borne  public  witness.  They  were  the 
only  persons  assaulted,  yet  they  were  the  onlv  persons 


MOBS  AND  EDUCATION.  335 

arrested.  They  were  the  only  persons  knocked  down, 
and  they  were  the  only  persons  carried  from  the  hall  by 
the  police.  The  chief  says  that  individual  Abolitionists 
were  removed  by  mistake.  Singular  that  this  mistake 
should  never  have  happened  to  those  who  were  using  their 
canes  and  their  fists,  and  should  have  taken  place  only  in 
regard  to  persons  conspicuous  for  their  courtesy  and  for 
bearance  ! 

The  friends  of  the  Mayor  urge  that  the  mob  was  too 
strong  for  the  whole  force  of  the  government.  Let  him 
show  that  he  spoke  one  word,  that  he  lifted  one  finger, 
that  he  remonstrated  with  one  rioter,  and  we  will  grant 
him  that  excuse.  But  the  pilot  who  says  the  storm  is  too 
strong  for  him  must  show  that  he  put  his  hand  once,  at 
least,  upon  the  helm,  to  see  whether  it  would  obey  the 
hold. 

Our  present  Mayor  is  not  singular ;  he  does  not  stand 
alone.  We  have  not  had  a  decent  Mayor  for  ten  years. 
[Sensation,  and  vehement  hisses.]  Vassals  of  the  grog 
shop,  and  mortgaged  to  State  Street,  what  could  you 
expect  from  them  ?  Of  course  Smith  and  Bigelow  are 
beneath  notice,  —  mere  hounds  of  the  slave-hunt,  a  hand's- 
breadth  ahead  of  the  pack.  But  these  other  degenerate 
magistrates  find  here  and  there  a  predecessor  to  keep 
them  in  ^countenance ;  indeed,  all  the  Mayors  on  the 
Atlantic  coast  are  their  models,  with  one  or  two  noble 
exceptions.  That  mob  which  Messrs.  Fay  and  Howe 
inaugurated  spent  the  night  among  our  colored  citizens' 
dwellings,  beating,  kicking,  and  stabbing  all  whom  they 
met.  The  police  were  on  special  duty  in  those  streets  in 
the  night.  The  morning  opened,  the  courts  assembled, 
the  magistrate  took  his  seat.  The  only  person  arrested 
for  that  night's  disorder  is  one  black  boy,  fourteen  years 
old,  who  had  defended  himself  against  bullies  ! 

I  do  not  remember  precisely  the  mob  against  the  Irish 


336  MOBS  AND  EDUCATION. 

in  Broad  Street,  but  I  am  told  that  the  same  is  true  of  that 
riot,  that  none  but  those  assaulted  were  arrested.  I  have 
known  three  cases  of  magistrates  quelling  mobs.  One  was 
Neal  Dow,  in  Portland,  —  not  necessary,  some  thought, 
to  fire.  But  let  us  grant  Portland  her  fame,  —  she  has 
quelled  a  mob.  Providence,  also,  under  a  magistrate 
whose  name  I  wish  I  could  remember,  (Governor  Arnold, 
I  am  told,)  quelled  her  mob  with  bullets ;  and  last  year, 
Mayor  Henry,  of  Philadelphia,  —  a  name  that  ought  to  be 
written  in  letters  of  gold,  —  taught  purse-proud  ignorance 
and  brutality  to  obey  the  laws.  The  wealth  of  Philadel 
phia  petitioned  him  not  to  allow  Mr.  Curtis  to  lecture. 
One  of  the  petitioners  waited  on  him  and  said,  "  Sir,  do 
you  know  the  treasonable  sentiments  of  Mr.  Curtis  ? " 
u  No,  sir,"  was  the  answer;  "I  know  only  that  it  is  my 
duty  to  protect  him."  "  Do  you  know,  sir,  that  the 
wealthiest  houses  have  petitioned  you  to  stop  the  meet 
ing? "  "  Yes,  sir."  "  What  shall  you  do  if  they  appear, 
and  put  a  stop  to  the  lecture  ?  "  "  Send  them  to  the 
watch-house."  [Applause.]  Mr.  Curtis  lectured,  and 
Mayor  Henry  was  re-elected.  While  such  men  live,  I 
am  opposed  to  rotation  in  office.  [Laughter.] 

It  is  a  long  while  since  we  have  had  such  a  Mayor. 
Your  magistrates  have  always  needed  twenty-four  hours, 
and  closetings  with  indignant  citizens,  before  they  learned 
their  duties.  In  1835,  Mayor  Lyman,  —  a  lawyer,  a 
scholar,  a  gentleman,  —  instead  of  protecting  Mr.  Garri 
son,  or  dying  in  front  of  him,  spent  the  critical  hour  of 
the  mob's  existence  in  vain  intercessions  with  his  personal 
friends,  'in  pitiful  appeals  to  drunken  broadcloth,  [slight 
hissing,]  and  went  home  to  realize  the  noble  opportunity 
he  had  lost  of  endearing  his  memory  to  law,  liberty,  and 
the  good  name  of  the  city,  to  realize  the  grave  duty  he 
had  failed  to  meet,  and  to  spend  his  after  life  in  bitter  and 
unavailing  regret  over  that  disgraceful  and  wicked  hour  of 


MOBS   AND  EDUCATION.  337 

his  magistracy.  But  he  lived,  —  he  lived  to  repent ;  and 
later  services  did  endear  his  name  to  the  Commonwealth. 
There  is  no  evidence  that  our  more  recent  Mayors  know 
even  enough  to  be  ashamed. 

O 

The  men  of  that  day  lived  to  beg  pardon  of  the  very 
persons  they  had  mobbed.  All  Boston  glorified  them, 
that  month ;  they  walked  State  Street  in  pride.  But 
you  would  think  me  cruel,  to-day,  if  I  gibbeted  their 
names.  The  hour  is  near,  it  knocks  at  yonder  door,  when 
whoever  reminds  an  audience  that  Richard  S.  Fay  and 
Mayor  Lincoln  broke  up  an  antislavery  meeting  will  be 
considered,  even  by  State  Street  and  the  Courier,  bitter 
and  uncharitable,  [hisses,]  as  eminently  unchristian,  in 
reminding  the  disgraced  and  the  forgotten  of  their  sins. 

What  was  the  meeting  thus  assailed  ?  It  was  a  meeting 
met  to  discuss  slavery,  —  a  topic  which  makes  the  repub 
lic  tremble,  the  settlement  of  which  is  identical  with  the 
surviving  of  our  government,  —  a  topic  upon  which  every 
press,  every  legislature,  every  magistrate,  south  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line,  flings  defiance  at  the  Union,  amid  the 
plaudits  of  Mr.  Fay  and  his  friends.  What  day  was  it  ? 
The  anniversary  of  the  martyrdom  of  the  only  man  whose 
name  stirs  the  pulses  of  Europe  in  this  generation.  [De 
risive  laughter.]  English  statesmen  confess  never  to  have 
read  a  line  of  Webster.  You  may  name  Seward  in 
Munich  and  Vienna,  in  Pesth  or  in  Naples,  and  vacant 
eyes  will  ask  you,  "Who  is  he?"  But  all  Europe,  the 
leaders  and  the  masses,  spoke  by  the  lips  of  Victor  Hugo, 
when  he  said,  "  The  death  of  Brown  is  more  than 
Cain  killing  Abel ;  it  is  Washington  slaying  Spartacus." 
[Laughter  from  some  parts  of  the  hall,  and  from  others 
applause.] 

What  was  the  time  of  this  meeting  ?  An  hour  when 
our  Senators  and  Representatives  were  vindicating  the 
free  speech  of  Massachusetts  in  Washington,  in  the  face 

22 


338  MOBS   AND   EDUCATION. 

of  armed  men.  Are  we  to  surrender  it  in  the  streets  at 
home,  to  the  hucksters  and  fops  of  the  Exchange  ?  This 
day  on  which  I  speak,  a  year  ago,  those  brave  young 
hearts  which  held  up  John  Brown's  hands  faced  death 
without  a  murmur,  for  the  slave's  sake.  In  the  light  oi 
their  example,  God  forbid  we  should  give  up  free  speech  ! 

Whom  is  it  proposed  to  silence  ?  Men  who  for  thirty 
years,  from  the  ocean  to  Kansas,  sacrificing  reputation, 
wealth,  position,  seeing  their  houses  pillaged,  their  friends 
mobbed  in  the  streets,  have  forced  this  question  on  reluc 
tant  senates  and  statesmen,  until  at  last,  all  other  issues 
driven  out  of  the  arena,  God  chains  this  age  to  the  re 
demption  of  the  slave.  Victors  in  such  a  fight,  after  such 
a  field,  after  having  taught  this  nation,  at  such  woful  cost, 
the  sacredness  of  free  discussion,  who  are  these  traders 
that  weigh  their  gold  against  our  rights?  Who  is  this 
boaster  parading  his  two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and 
telling  us  he  will  spend  every  one  of  them  to  "  put  down 
this  agitation  "  ?  He  "  put  down  this  agitation  "  !  That 
attempt  was  announced  before,  from  the  steps  of  the  Re 
vere  House.  The  unhappy  statesman,  defeated,  heart 
broken,  sleeps  by  the  solemn  waves  of  the  Atlantic. 
"  Oontempsi  Catilince  gladios,  non  tuos  pertimescam."  The 
half  omnipotence  of  Webster  we  defied;  who  heeds  this 
pedler's  empty  wind? 

How  shall  we  prevent  such  insolent  attempts  for  the 
future  ?  Educate  the  future  Fays  more  thoroughly. 
Teach  them  the  distinction  between  duties  and  dollars. 
Plant  deep  in  the  heart  of  the  masses  the  conviction  of 
the  utter  sacredness  of  the  right  of  free  speech.  Our 
fathers  made  their  sons  hate  the  Pope  so  thoroughly,  that 
hatred  of  Popery  is  no  longer  an  intellectual  conviction, 
but  has  become  a  constituent  element  of  Yankee  blood 
and  bone.  Put  the  sacredness  of  free  speech  into  the 
same  condition.  Carve  in  letters  of  gold  in  every 


MOBS  AND  EDUCATION.  339 

school-house  this  letter  of  our  loved  Governor  elect,  — 
the  best  word  a  Massachusetts  Governor  has  said  since 
the  first  Winthrop  gave  his  fine  definition  of  civil  lib 
erty.  Mr.  Andrew  says  :  — 

"  *  The  right  to  think,  to  know,  and  to  utter,'  as  John  Milton 
said,  is  the  dearest  of  all  liberties.  Without  this  right,  there  can 
be  no  liberty  to  any  people ;  with  it,  there  can  be  no  slavery." 

And  Mr.  Andrew  goes  on :  — 

<;  I  care  not  for  the  truth  or  error  of  the  opinions  held  or 
uttered,  nor  for  the  wisdom  of  the  words  or  time  of  their  at 
tempted  expression,  when  I  consider  this  great  question  of  fun 
damental  significance,  this  great  right  which  must  first  be  secure 
before  free  society  can  be  said  to  stand  on  any  foundation,  but 
only  on  temporary  or  capricious  props. 

"  Rich  or  poor,  white  or  black,  great  or  small,  wise  or  foolish, 
in  season  or  out  of  season,  in  the  right  or  in  the  wrong,  whosoever 
will  speak,  let  him  speak,  and  whosoever  will  hear,  let  him  hear. 
And  let  no  one  pretend  to  the  prerogative  of  judging  another 
man's  liberty.  In  this  respect  there  is,  and  there  can  be,  no 
superiority  of  persons  or  privileges,  nor  the  slightest  pretext  for 
any." 

Thank  God  for  such  a  Governor  to  come  !  [Applause.] 
Make  that  Massachusetts,  and  then  we  may  stop  a  boy  in 
the  streets  and  make  him  Mayor,  sure  that,  without  need 
of  thought  or  consultation,  he  will  gird  himself  to  protect 
unpopular  free  speech,  and  put  down  fashionable  riot,  in 
stead  of  lazily  protecting  fashionable  riot,  and  putting  down 
unpopular  free  speech. 

I  have  used  strong  words.  But  I  was  born  in  Bostoi; . 
and  the  good  name  of  the  old  town  is  bound  up  with  every 
fibre  of  my  heart.  I  dare  not  trust  myself  to  describe  th< 
insolence  of  men  who  undertake  to  dictate  to  you  and  me 
what  we  shall  say  in  these  grand  old  streets.  But  who 
can  adequately  tell  the  sacredness  and  the  value  of  free 
speech  ?  Who  can  fitly  describe  the  enormity  of  the 


340  MOBS   AND  EDUCATION. 

crime  of  its  violation  ?  Free  speech,  at  once  the  instru 
ment  and  the  guaranty  and  the  bright  consummate  flower 
of  all  liberty.  Free  speech  in  these  streets,  once  trod  by 
Henry  Vane,  its  apostle  and  champion.  Free  speech,  in 
that  language  which  holds  the  dying  words  of  Algernon 
Sidney,  its  martyr.  As  Everett  said,  near  forty  years 
ago:  — 

"  I  seem  to  hear  a  voice  from  the  tombs  of  departed  ages,  from 
the  sepulchres  of  nations  that  died  before  the  sight.  They  exhort 
us,  they  adjure  us,  to  be  faithful  to  our  trust.  They  implore  us, 
by  the  long  trials  of  struggling  humanity,  by  the  awful  secrets  of 
the  prison-house  where  the  sons  of  Freedom  have  been  immured, 
by  the  noble  heads  which  have  been  brought  to  the  block,  by  the 
eloquent  ruins  of  nations,  they  conjure  us  not  to  quench  the  light 
that  is  rising  on  the  world.  Greece  cries  to  us  by  the  convulsed 
lips  of  her  poisoned,  dying  Demosthenes,  and  Rome  pleads  with 
us  in  the  mute  persuasion  of  her  mangled  Tully." 

Let  us  listen  to  the  grave  and  weighty  words  of  the 
nephew  of  Charles  James  Fox,  Lord  Holland,  in  his  pro 
test  when  British  Tories  tried  to  stop  the  discussion  of 
Catholic  Emancipation,  —  words  of  which  Macaulay  says, 
"  They  state  a  chief  article  of  the  political  creed  of  the 
Whigs  with  singular  clearness,  brevity,  and  force." 

"  "We  are,"  Lord  Holland  says,  "  well  aware  that  the  privileges 
of  the  people,  the  rights  of  free  discussion,  and  the  spirit  and 
letter  of  our  popular  institutions,  must  render  —  and  they  are  in 
tended  to  render  —  the  continuance  of  an  extensive  grievance, 
and  of  the  dissatisfaction  consequent  thereupon,  dangerous  to  the 
tranquillity  of  the  country,  and  ultimately  subversive  of  the  au 
thority  of  the  state.  Experience  and  theory  alike  forbid  us  to 
deny  that  effect  of  a  free  constitution  :  a  sense  of  justice  and  a 
love  of  liberty  equally  deter  us  from  lamenting  it.  But  we  have 
always  been  taught  to  look  for  the  remedy  of  such  disorders  in  the 
redress  of  the  grievances  which  justify  them,  and  in  the  removal 
of  the  dissatisfaction  from  which  they  flow ;  not  in  restraints  on 


MOBS   AND  EDUCATION.  341 

ancient  privileges,  not  in  inroads  on  the  right  of  public  discussion^ 
nor  in  violations  of  the  principles  of  a  free  government" 

Governments  exist  to  protect  the  rights  of  minorities. 
The  loved  and  the  rich  need  no  protection,  —  they  have 
many  friends  and  few  enemies.  We  have  praised  our 
Union  for  seventy  years.  This  is  the  first  time  it  is 
tested.  Has  it  educated  men  who  know  their  rights,  and 
dare  to  maintain  them  ?  Can  it  bear  the  discussion  of  a 
great  national  sin,  anchored  deep  in  the  prejudices  and 
interests  of  millions  ?  If  so,  it  deserves  to  live.  If  not, 
the  sooner  it  vanishes  out  of  the  way  the  better. 

The  time  to  assert  rights  is  when  they  are  denied ;  the 
men  to  assert  them  are  those  to  whom  they  are  denied. 
The  community  which  dares  not  protect  its  humblest  and 
most  hated  member  in  the  free  utterance  of  his  opinions, 
no  matter  how  false  or  hateful,  is  only  a  gang  of  slaves. 


"  At  the  conclusion  of  the  exercises,  Mr.  Phillips's  friends  flocked 
upon  the  platform  to  congratulate  him.  After  a  while,  Mr.  Phillips  left 
the  platform,  accompanied  by  several  friends,  who  were  joined,  in  the 
lower  entry,  by  some  twenty  in  number.  As  the  party  emerged  from 
the  building  to  the  avenue  leading  from  the  hall  to  Winter  Street,  a 
large  crowd  was  found  collected  there,  who  set  up  various  cries,  such 
as  '  There  he  is  ! '  *  Crush  him  out ! '  *  Down  with  the  Abolition 
ists  ! '  *  Bite  his  head  off ! '  *  All  up  ! '  &c.,  and  surged  toward 
Mr.  Phillips,  with  the  manifest  purpose  of  preventing  his  egress.  In 
this,  however,  they  were  balked  by  the  resolute  front  of  his  friends 
and  the  energy  of  the  police,  who  forced  the  crowd  to  give  way. 

"  On  entering  Winter  Street,  the  mob,  which  almost  blockaded  the 
street,  yelled  and  hissed,  and  gave  vent  to  their  impotent  rage  by 
such  cries  as  those  given  above  ;  but  the  party  proceeded  down  the 
street,  and  up  Washington  Street,  surrounded  by  a  strong  detachment 
of  police,  and  followed  by  an  immense  throng  of  people,  many  of 
them,  however,  friends  of  Mr.  Phillips,  and  determined  to  protect 
him  from  injury.  No  demonstrations  of  violence,  happily,  were  made. 
The  singular  procession  excited  the  attention  of  people  living  on  the 


342  MOBS   AND  EDUCATION. 

route  largely,  and  the  windows  looking  on  the  street  were  crowded 
with  faces  expressing  wonder  and  curiosity.  Arrived  at  his  house  in 
Essex  Street,  Mr.  Phillips  entered,  with  a  few  of  his  friends,  when 
three  cheers  were  given  by  some  of  those  present,  which  were  an 
swered  by  hisses  from  the  other  side.  Deputy- Chief  Ham  then  re 
quested  the  crowd  to  disperse,  which  they  did,  though  somewhat 
slowly,  and  with  manifest  reluctance.  So  ended  the  disgraceful  scene." 
—  Liberator. 


DISUNION.* 


THE  office  of  the  pulpit  is  to  teach  men  their  duty. 
Wherever  men's  thoughts  influence  their  laws,  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  pulpit  to  preach  politics.  If  it  were  pos 
sible  to  conceive  of  a  community  whose  opinions  had  no 
influence  on  their  government,  there  the  pulpit  would 
have  no  occasion  to  talk  of  government.  I  never  heard 
or  knew  of  such  a  community.  Though  sheltered  by 
Roman  despotism,  Herod  and  the  chief  priests  abstained 
from  this  and  that  because  they  "feared  the  people." 
The  Sultan  dared  to  murder  his  Janizaries  only  when 
the  streets  came  to  hate  them  as  much  as  he  did.  The 
Czar,  at  the  head  of  a  government  whose  constitution 
knows  no  check  but  poison  and  the  dagger,  yet  feels  the 
pressure  of  public  opinion.  Certainly,  where  pews  are 
full  of  voters,  no  question  but  the  sermon  should  be  full 
of  politics. 

\  ,  "  The  Lord  reigneth ;  let  the  earth  rejoice."  "  The 
'  covenant  with  death "  is  annulled  ;  "  the  agreement 
with  hell "  is  broken  to  pieces.  The  chain  which  has 
held  the  slave  system  since  1787  is  parted.  Thirty  years 
ago,  Southern  leaders,  sixteen  years  ago,  Northern  Aboli 
tionists,  announced  their  purpose  to  seek  the  dissolution  of 
the  American  Union.  Who  dreamed  that  success  would 
come  so  soon  ?  South  Carolina,  bankrupt,  alone,  with  a 

*  Lecture  delivered  in  the  Music  Hall,  January  20, 1861,  —  a  large  part  of 
the  Hall  and  the  avenues  to  it  occupied  by  the  mob. 


344  DISUNION. 

hundred  thousand  more  slaves  than  whites,  four  blacks  to 
three  whites,  within  her  borders,  flings  her  gauntlet  at  the 
feet  of  twenty-five  millions  of  people  in  defence  of  an  idea, 
to  maintain  what  she  thinks  her  right.  I  would  New 
England  could  count  one  State  as  fearless  among  her  six ! 
Call  it  not  the  madness  of  an  engineer  who  stands  in  front 
of  his  cannon  at  the  moment  of  discharge  ;  call  it  rather 
the  forlorn  hope  of  the  mariner,  seizing  plank  or  spar  in 
the  fury  of  the  storm.  The  mistake  of  South  Carolina  is, 
she  fancies  there  is  more  chance  of  saving  slavery  outside 
of  the  Union  than  inside.  Three  States  have  followed  her 
example.  Probably  the  rest  of  the  Slave  States,  or  many 
of  them,  will  find  themselves  unable  to  resist  the  infection, 
and  then  the  whole  merciless  conspiracy  of  1787  is  ended, 
and  timid  men  will  dare  to  hate  slavery  without  trembling 
for  bread  or  life. 

Let  us  look  at  the  country,  —  the  North,  the  South, 
and  the  government.  The  South  divided  into  three  sec 
tions  :  —  1st.  Those  who  hold  slaves  exactly  as  they  do 
bank-stock  or  land,  —  and  of  course  love  the  Union,  which 
enables  them  to  treat  man  as  property, — timid  wealth 
shrinking  from  change,  but  so  timid  as  to  stand  dumb. 
2d.  Those  who  have  ruled  the  nation  sixty  years,  monop 
olizing  Presidents'  chairs  and  Embassies;  defeated  now, 
these  plan,  in  earnest  sincerity,  for  another  nation  writh 
Presidencies  and  Embassies  all  to  themselves.  3d.  A  class 
made  up  from  these  two,  who  cling  to  the  Union  in  their 
hearts,  but  threaten  loudly,  well  knowing  the  loudest 
threats  get  the  best  bargain. 

The  object  of  the  South  is  a  separate  confederacy,  hop 
ing  they  can  stand  long  enough  for  the  North  to  ask  for 
annexation  on  their  terms. 

Then  comes  the  government,  so  called,  —  in  reality  a 
conspiracy  against  justice  and  honest  men  ;  some  of  its 
members  pilferers  and  some  traitors,  the  rest  pilferers  and 


DISUNION.  345 

traitors  too.  Like  all  outgoing  administrations,  they  have 
no  wish  to  lessen  the  troubles  of  their  successors  by  cur 
ing  the  nation's  hurt,  —  rather  aggravate  it.  They. have 
done  all  the  mischief  in  their  power,  and  long  now  only  to 
hear  the  clock  strike  twelve  on  the  fourth  day  of  March. 

Then  look  at  the  North,  divided  into  three  sections :  — 
1st.  The  defeated  minority,  glad  of  anything  that  troubles 
their  conquerors.  2d.  The  class  of  Republicans  led  by 
Seward,  offering  to  surrender  anything  to  save  the  Union. 
[Applause.]  Their  gospel  is  the  Constitution  [applause], 
and  the  slave  clause  is  their  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
[Laughter  and  applause.]  They  think  that,  at  the  judg 
ment-day,  the  blacker  the  sins  they  have  committed  to 
save  the  Union,  the  clearer  will  be  their  title  to  heaven. 
3d.  The  rest  of  the  Republicans,  led  by  the  Tribune  — 
all  honor  to  the  Tribune,  faithful  and  true !  —  who  con 
sider  their  honor  pledged  to  fulfil  in  office  the  promises 
made  in  the  canvass.  Their  motto  is :  "  The  Chicago 
platform,  every  inch  of  it ;  not  a  hair's-breadth  of  the 
Territories  shall  be  surrendered  to  slavery."  [Applause.] 
But  they,  too,  claim  the  cannon's  mouth  to  protect  forts, 
defend  the  flag,  and  save  the  Union.  At  the  head  of  this 
section,  we  have  every  reason  to  believe,  stands  Mr. 
Abraham  Lincoln. 

All  these  are  the  actors  on  the  stage.  But  the  founda 
tion  on  which  all  stand  divides  only  into  two  parts :  those 
who  like  slavery,  and  mean  it  shall  last ;  those  who  hate 
it,  and  mean  it  shall  die.  In  the  boiling  gulf  goes  on  the 
perpetual  conflict  of  acid  and  alkali ;  all  these  classes  are 
but  bubbles  on  the  surface.  The  upper  millstone  is  right, 
and  the  lower  wrong.  Between  them,  governments  and 
parchments,  parties  and  compromises,  are  being  slowly 
ground  to  powder. 

Broadly  stated,  the  South  plans  a  Southern  Confederacy 
to  uphold  slavery,  —  the  North  clings  to  the  Union  to 


346  DISUNION. 

uphold  trade  and  secure  growth.  Without  the  Union, 
Mr.  Seward  tells  us  we  can  neither  be  safe,  rich,  strong, 
nor  happy.  We  used  to  think  justice  was  before  thrift, 
and  nobleness  better  than  happiness.XW  ..place  no  great 
reliance  on  that  prudent  patriotism  wmch  is  the  child  of 
interesL^The  Tribune,  unusually  frank,  pre-eminently 
honorSfele'  and  lofty  as  has  been  its  tone  of  late,  still 
says,  "  Be  it  the  business  of  the  people  everywhere  to 
forget  the  negro,  and  remember  only  the  country." 
[Applause.] 

After  drifting,  a  dreary  night  of  thirty  years,  before  the 
hurricane,  our  ship  of  state  is  going  to  pieces  on  the  lee 
shore  of  slavery.  Every  one  confesses  that  the  poison  of 
our  body  politic  is  slavery.  European  critics,  in  view  of 
it,  have  pronounced  the  existence  of  the  Union  hitherto  a 
"  fortunate  accident."  Orators  floated  into  fame  on  one 
inspired  phrase,  "  irrepressible  conflict."  Jefferson  died 
foreseeing  that  this  was  the  rock  on  which  we  should  split. 
Even  Mr.  Webster,  speaking  with  bated  breath,  in  the 
cold  chill  of  1850,  still  dared  to  be  a  statesman,  and  offered 
to  meet  the  South  on  this  question,  suggesting  a  broad 
plan  for  the  cure  of  our  dread  disease.  But  now,  with 
the  Union  dropping  asunder,  with  every  brain  and  tongue 
active,  we  have  yet  to  hear  the  first  statesman-word,  the 
first  proposal  to  consider  the  fountain  and  origin  of  all  our 
ills.  We  look  in  vain  through  Mr.  Seward's  speech  for 
one  hint  or  suggestion  as  to  any  method  of  dealing  with 
our  terrible  hurt.  Indeed,  one  of  his  terrors  of  disunion 
is,  that  it  will  give  room  for  "  an  European,  an  uncompro 
mising  hostility  to  slavery."  Such  an  hostility  —  the 
irrepressible  conflict  of  right  and  wrong  —  William  H. 
Seward,  in  1861,  pronounces  "  fearful  "  !  To  describe 
the  great  conflict  of  the  age,  the  first  of  American  states 
men,  in  the  year  of  Garibaldi  and  Italy,  can  find  nc 
epithet  but  "  fearful." 


DISUNION.  347 

The  servile  silence  of  the  7th  of  March,  1850,  is  out 
done,  and  to  New  York  Massachusetts  yields  the  post  of 
infamy  which  her  great  Senator  has  hitherto  filled.  Yes, 
of  all  the  doctors  bending  over  the  patient,  not  one  dares 
to  name  his  disease,  except  the  Tribune,  which  advises 
him  to  forget  it !  Throughout  half  of  the  great  cities  of 
the  North,  every  one  who  touches  on  it  is  mobbed  into 
silence  !  This  is,  indeed,  the  saddest  feature  of  our  times. 

Let  us,  then,  who,  unlike  Mr.  Seward,  are  not  afraid  to 
tell,  even  now,  all  and  just  what  we  wish,  —  let  us  look  at 
the  real  nature  of  the  crisis  in  which  we  stand.  The 
Tribune  says  we  should  "  forget  the  negro."  It  seems  to 
me  that  all  our  past,  all  our  present,  and  all  our  future 
command  us  at  this  moment  to  think  of  nothing  but  the 
negro.  [Slight  laughter  derisively.] 

Let  me  tell  you  why.  Mr.  Seward  says,  "  The  first 
object  of  every  human  society  is  safety  "  ;  I  think  the  first 
duty  of  society  is  JUSTICE.  Alexander  Hamilton  said, 
I  "  Justice  is  the  end  of  government.  It  is  the  end  of  civil 
*  society."  If  any  other  basis  of  safety  or  gain  were  honest, 
it  would  be  impossible.  "A  prosperous  iniquity,"  says 
Jeremy  Taylor,  "  is  the  most  unprofitable  condition  in  the 
world."  The  nation  which,  in  moments  when  great  moral 
questions  disturb  its  peace,  consults  first  for  its  own  safety, 
is  atheist  and  coward,  and  there  are  three  chances  out  of 
four  that  it  will  end  by  being  knave.  We  were  not  sent 
into  the  world  to  plant  cities,  to  make  Unions  or  save 
them.  Seeing  that  all  men  are  born  equal,  our  first  civil 
duty  is  to  see  that  our  laws  treat  them  so.  The  convul 
sion  of  this  hour  is  the  effort  of  the  nation  to  do  this,  its 
duty,  while  politicians  and  parties  strive  to  balk  it  of  its 
purpose.  The  nation  agonizes  this  hour  to  recognize  man 
as  man,  forgetting  color,  condition,  sex,  and  creed. 

Our  Revolution  -earned  us  only  independence.  What 
ever  our  fathers  meant,  the  chief  lesson  of  that  hour  was 


348  DISUNION. 

that  America  belongs  to  Americans.  That  generation 
learned  it  thoroughly ;  the  second  inherited  it  as  a  preju 
dice  ;  we,  the  third,  have  our  bones  and  blood  made  of  it. 
When  thought  passes  through  purpose  into  character,  it 
becomes  the  unchangeable  basis  of  national  life.  That 
Revolutionary  lesson  need  never  be  learned  again,  and 
will  never  die  out.  Let  a  British  fleet,  with  admirals  of 
the  blue  and  red,  cover  our  Atlantic  coast,  and  in  ten 
days  Massachusetts  and  Carolina  will  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder ;  the  only  rivalry,  who  shall  die  nearest  the  foe. 
[Loud  applause,  with  cries  of  "  Good."] 

That  principle  is  all  our  Revolution  directly  taught  us. 
Massachusetts  was  hide-bound  in  the  aristocracy  of  classes 
for  years  after.  The  bar  and  the  orthodox  pulpit  were  our 
House  of  Lords.  A  Baptist  clergyman  was  little  better 
than  a  negro.  The  five  points  of  Massachusetts  decency 
were,  to  trace  your  lineage  to  the  Mayflower,  graduate  at 
Harvard  College,  be  a  good  lawyer  or  a  member  of  an 
orthodox  church, — either  would  answer  [laughter],  —  pay 
your  debts,  and  frighten  your  child  to  sleep  by  saying 
"Thomas  Jefferson."  Our  theological  aristocracy  went 
down  before  the  stalwart  blows  of  Baptist,  Unitarian,  and 
Freethinker,  —  before  Channing  and  Abner  Kneeland. 
Virginia  slaveholders,  making  theoretical  democracy  their 
passion,  conquered  the  Federal  Government,  and  emanci 
pated  the  working-classes  of  New  England.  Bitter  was 
the  cup  to  honest  Federalism  and  the  Essex  Junto.  To 
day,  Massachusetts  only  holds  to  the  lips  of  Carolina  a 
beaker  of  the  same  beverage  I  know  no  man  who  has 
analyzed  this  passage  in  our  history  so  well  as  Richard 
Hildreth.  The  last  thirty  years  have  been  the  flowering 
out  of  this  lesson.  The  Democratic  principle,  crumbling 
classes  into  men,  has  been  working  down  from  pulpits  and 
judges'  seats,  through  shop-boards  and  shoe-benches,  to 
Irish  hodmen,  and  reached  the  negro  at  last.  The  long 


DISUNION.  349 

toil  of  a  century  cries  out,  Eureka!  —  "  I  have  found  it !  " 
—  the  diamond  of  an  immortal  soul  and  an  equal  manhood 
under  a  black  skin  as  truly  as  under  a  white  one.  For 
this,  Leggett  labored  and  Lovejoy  died.  For  this,  the 
bravest  soul  of  the  century  went  up  to  God  from  a  Vir 
ginia  scaffold.  [Hisses  and  applause.]  For  this,  young 
men  gave  up  their  May  of  youth,  and  old  men  the  honors 
and  ease  of  age.  It  went  through  the  land  writing  his 
tory  afresh,  setting  up  and  pulling  down  parties,  riving 
sects,  mowing  down  colossal  reputations,  making  us  veil 
our  faces  in  shame  at  the  baseness  of  our  youth's  idols, 
sending  bankrupt  statesmen  to  dishonored  graves. 

We  stand  to-day  just  as  Hancock  and  Adams  and  Jef 
ferson  stood  when  stamp-act  and  tea-tax,  Patrick  Henry's 
eloquence  and  the  massacre  of  March  5th,  Otis's  blood 
and  Bunker  Hill,  had  borne  them  to  July,  1776.  Suppose 
at  that  moment  John  Adams  had  cried  out,  "  Now  let  the 
people  everywhere  forget  Independence,  and  remember 
only  4  God  save  the  King  ' !  "  [Laughter.]  The  toil  o£ 
a  whole  generation  —  thirty  years  —  has  been  spent  in  ex 
amining  this  question  of  the  rights  and  place  of  the  negro  ; 
the  whole  earnest  thought  of  the  nation  given  to  it ;  old 
parties  have  been  wrecked  against  it,  new  ones  grown  out 
of  it ;  it  stifles  all  other  questions  ;  the  great  interests  of 
the  nation  necessarily  suffer,  men  refusing  to  think  of  any 
thing  else  but  this;  it  struggles  up  through  all  compro 
mises,  asserting  its  right  to  be  heard ;  no  green  withes  of 
eloquence  or  cunning,  trade,  pulpit,  Congress,  or  college, 
succeed  in  binding  this  Samson ;  the  business  of  the  sea 
board  begs  it  may  be  settled,  no  matter  how  ;  the  whole 
South  is  determined  to  have  it  met,  proclaiming  that  she 
does  not  secede  because  of  personal  liberty  laws  or  a  Re 
publican  President,  but  because  of  the  state  of  Northern 
feeling  of  which  these  are  signs.  It  is  not  Northern  laws 
or  officers  they  fear,  but  Northern  conscience.  Why,  then. 


350  DISUNION. 

should  not  the  North  accept  the  issue,  and  try  to  settle  the 
question  forever  ?  You  may  run  the  Missouri  line  to  the 
Pacific,  but  Garrison  still  lives ;  and  while  he  does,  South 
Carolina  hates  and  fears  Massachusetts.  [Applause.]  No 
Congressional  resolves  can  still  our  brains  or  stifle  oui 
hearts ;  till  you  do,  the  slaveholder  feels  that  New  Eng 
land  is  his  natural  foe.  There  can  therefore  be  no  real 
peace  till  we  settle  the  slave  question.  If  thirty  years 
of  debate  have  not  fitted  us  to  meet  it,  when  shall  we 
be  able? 

But  the  most  honest  Republicans  say  a  State  has  no 
right  to  secede ;  we  will  show  first  that  we  have  a  gov 
ernment,  and  then,  not  before,  settle  disputed  questions. 
Suppose  a  State  has  no  right  to  secede,  of  what  conse 
quence  is  that  ?  A  Union  is  made  up  of  willing  States, 
not  of  conquered  provinces.  There  are  some  rights,  quite 
perfect,  yet  wholly  incapable  of  being  enforced.  A  hus 
band  or  wife  who  can  only  keep  the  other  partner  within 
the  bond  by  locking  the  doors  and  standing  armed  before 
them,  had  better  submit  to  peaceable  separation.  [Ap 
plause.]  A  firm  where  one  partner  refuses  to  act  has  a 
full  right  to  his  services,  but  how  compel  them  ?  South 
Carolina  may  be  punished  for  her  fault  in  going  out  of  the 
Union,  but  that  does  not  keep  her  in  it.  Why  not  rec 
ognize  soberly  the  nature  and  necessity  of  our  position  ? 
Why  not,  like  statesmen,  remember  that  homogeneous 
nations  like  France  tend  to  centralization  ;  confederacies 
like  ours  tend  inevitably  to  dismemberment  ?  France  is 
the  slow,  still  deposit  of  ages  on  central  granite  ;  only  the 
globe's  convulsion  can  rive  it !  We  are  the  rich  mud  of 
the  Mississippi ;  every  flood  shifts  it  from  one  side  to  the 
other  of  the  channel.  Nations  like  Austria,  victim  states, 
held  under  the  lock  and  key  of  despotism,  —  or  like  our 
selves,  a  herd  of  States,  hunting  for  their  food  together,  — 
must  expect  that  any  quarrel  may  lead  to  disunion.  Be- 


DISUNION.  351 

side,  Inter  arma,  silent  leges,  —  armies  care  nothing  for 
constables.     This  is  not  a  case  at  law,  but  revolution. 

Let  us  not,  however,  too  anxiously  grieve  over  the 
Union  of  1787.  Real  Unions  are  not  made,  they  grow. 
This  was  made,  like  an  artificial  waterfall  or  a  Connecticut 
nutmeg.  It  was  not  an  oak  which  to-day  a  tempest  shat 
ters.  It  was  a  wall  hastily  built,  in  hard  times,  of  round 
boulders  ;  the  cement  has  crumbled,  and  the  smooth 
stones,  obeying  the  law  of  gravity,  tumble  here  and  there. 
Why  should  we  seek  to  stop  them,  merely  to  show  that 
we  have  a  right  and  can  ?  That  were  only  a  waste  of 
means  and  temper.  Let  us  build,  like  the  Pyramids,  a 
fabric  which  every  natural  law  guarantees ;  or,  better  still, 
plant  a  Union  whose  life  survives  the  ages,  and  quietly 
gives  birth  to  its  successor. 

Mr.  Seward's  last  speech,  which  he  confesses  does  not 
express  his  real  convictions,  denies  every  principle  but  one 
that  he  proclaimed  in  his  campaign  addresses;  that  one  — 
which,  at  Lansing,  he  expressly  said  "  he  was  ashamed  to 
confess  "  — that  one  is  this :  Everything  is  to  be  sacrificed 
to  save  the  Union.  I  am  not  aware  that,  on  any  public 
occasion,  varied  and  wide  as  have  been  his  discussions  and 
topics,  he  has  ever  named  the  truth  or  the  virtue  which  he 
would  not  sacrifice  to  save  the  Union.  For  thirty  years, 
there  has  been  stormy  and  searching  discussion  of  profound 
moral  questions  ;  one,  whom  his  friends  call  our  only  states 
man,  has  spoken  often  on  all ;  yet  he  has  never  named  the 
sin  which  he  does  not  think  would  be  a  virtue,  if  it  con 
tributed  to  save  the  Union. 

Remembering  this  element  of  his  statesmanship,  let  us 
listen  to  the  key-note  of  his  late  speech :  "  The  first  ob 
ject  of  every  human  society  is  safety  or  security,  for 
which,  if  need  be,  they  will  and  they  must  sacrifice  every 
other." 

I  will  not  stop  to  say  that,  even  with  his  explanation, 


352  DISUNION. 

his  principle  is  equivocal,  and,  if  unlimited,  false  ;  that, 
unqualified,  it  justifies  every  crime,  and  would  have  pre 
vented  every  glory  of  history  ;  that  by  it,  James  II.  and 
Bonaparte  were  saints ;  under  one  sense,  the  Pilgrims 
were  madmen,  and  under  another,  the  Puritans  did  right 
to  hang  Quakers.  But  grant  it.  Suppose  the  Union 
means  wealth,  culture,  happiness,  and  safety,  man  has  no 
right  to  buy  either  by  crime. 

Many  years  ago,  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee  both  confessed  that  "  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union  was  the  dissolution  of  slavery."  Last  month,  Sen 
ator  Johnson  of  Tennessee  said :  "  If  I  were  an  Abolition 
ist,  and  wanted  to  accomplish  the  abolition  of  slavery  in 
the  Southern  States,  the  first  step  I  would  take  would  be 
to  break  the  bonds  of  this  Union.  I  believe  the  continu 
ance  of  slavery  depends  on  the  preservation  of  this  Union, 
and  a  compliance  with  all  the  guaranties  of  the  Constitu 
tion."  In  September  last  (at  La  Crosse),  Mr.  Seward 
himself  said,  "  What  are  they  [the  Southern  States]  in  for 
but  to  have  slavery  saved  for  them  by  the  Federal  Union  ? 
Why  would  they  go  out,  for  they  could  not  maintain  and 
defend  themselves  against  their  own  slaves  ? "  In  this 
last  speech,  he  tells  us  it  is  the  Union  which  restricts  the 
opposition  to  slavery  within  narrow  limits,  and  prevents  it 
from  being,  like  that  of  Europe,  a  "  direct  and  uncompro 
mising"  demand  for  abolition. 

Now,  if  the  Union  created  for  us  a  fresh  Golconda  every 
month,  if  it  made  every  citizen  wise  as  Solomon,  blameless 
as  St.  John,  and  safe  as  an  angel  in  the  courts  of  Heaven, 
to  cling  to  it  would  still  be  a  damnable  crime,  hateful  to 
God,  while  its  cement  was  the  blood  of  the  negro,  —  while 
it,  and  it  alone,  made  the  crime  of  slaveholding  possible  in 
fifteen  States. 

Mr.  Seward  is  a  power  in  the  state.  It  is  worth  while 
to  understand  his  course.  It  cannot  be  caprice.  His 


DISUNION.  353 

position  decides  that  of  millions.  The  instinct  which  leads 
him  to  take  it  shows  his  guess  (and  he  rarely  errs)  what 
the  majority  intend.  I  reconcile  thus  the  utter  difference 
and  opposition  of  his  campaign  speeches,  and  his  last  one. 
I  think  he  went  West,  sore  at  the  loss  of  the  nomination, 
but  with  too  much  good  sense,  perhaps  magnanimity,  to 
act  over  again  Webster's  sullen  part  when  Taylor  stole 
his  rights. 

Still,  Mr.  Seward,  though  philosophic,  though  keen  to 
analyze  and  unfold  the  theory  of  our  politics,  is  not  cun 
ning  in  plans.  He  is  only  the  hand  and  tongue  ;  his  brain 
lives  in  private  life  on  the  Hudson  River  side.  Acting 
under  that  guidance,  he  thought  Mr.  Lincoln  not  likely  to 
go  beyond,  even  if  he  were  able  to  keep,  the  whole  Chi 
cago  platform.  Accordingly,  he  said :  "  I  will  give  free 
rein  to  my  natural  feelings  and  real  convictions,  till  these 
Abolitionists  of  the  Republican  ranks  shall  cry,  '  O  what  a 
mistake!  We  ought  to  have  nominated  Seward;  another 
time  we  will  not  be  balked.' '  Hence  the  hot  eloquence 
and  fearless  tone  of  those  prairie  speeches.  He  returns  to 
Washington,  finds  Mr.  Lincoln  sturdily  insisting  that  his 
honor  is  pledged  to  keep  in  office  every  promise  made  in 
the  platform.  Then  Mr.  Seward  shifts  his  course,  saying : 
"  Since  my  abolitionism  cannot  take  the  wind  from  my 
rival's  sails,  I  '11  get  credit  as  a  Conservative.  Accepting 
the  premiership,  I  will  forestall  public  opinion,  and  do  all 
possible  to  bind  the  coming  administration  to  a  policy 
which  I  originate."  He  offers  to  postpone  the  whole  Chi 
cago  platform,  in  order  to  save  the  Union,  —  though  last 
October,  at  Chicago,  he  told  us  postponement  never  settles 
anything,  whether  it  is  a  lawsuit  or  a  national  question  ; 
better  be  beat  and  try  again  than  postpone. 

This  speech  of  Mr.  Seward  I  regard  as  a  declaration  of 
war  against  the  avowed  policy  of  the  incoming  President. 
If  Lincoln  were  an  Andrew  Jackson,  as  his  friends  aver, 

23 


354  DISUNION. 

he  would  dismiss  Mr.  Seward  from  his  Cabinet.  The  in 
coming  administration,  if  honest  and  firm,  has  two  enemies 
to  fight,  —  Mr.  Seward  and  the  South. 

His  power  is  large.  Already  he  has  swept  our  Adams 
into  the  vortex,  making  him  offer  to  sacrifice  the  whole 
Republican  platform,  though,  as  events  have  turned,  he 
has  sacrificed  only  his  own  personal  honor.  Fifteen  years 
ago,  John  Quincy  Adams  prophesied  that  the  Union  would 
not  last  twenty  years.  He  little  thought  that  disunion, 
when  it  came,  would  swallow  his  son's  honor  in  its  gulf.* 

At  such  hours,  New  England  Senators  and  Representa 
tives  have,  from  the  very  idea  of  their  ultraism,  little  or  no 
direct  weight  in  Congress.  But  while  New  England  is 
the  brain  of  the  Union,  and  therefore  foreshadows  what 
will  be  public  opinion  in  the  plastic  West  five  years 
hence,  it  is  of  momentous  consequence  that  the  people 
here  should  make  their  real  feelings  known ;  that  the 
pulpit  and  press  should  sound  the  bugle-note  of  utter  de 
fiance  to  slavery  itself,  —  Union  or  no  Union,  Constitution 
or  no  Constitution,  freedom  for  every  man  between  the 
oceans,  and  from  the  hot  Gulf  to  the  frozen  pole  !  You 
may  as  well  dam  up  Niagara  with  bulrushes  as  bind  our 
antislavery  purpose  with  Congressional  compromise.  The 
South  knows  it.  While  she  holds  out  her  hand  for  Sew- 
ard's  offer,  she  keeps  her  eye  fixed  on  us,  to  see  what  we 
think.  Let  her  see  that  we  laugh  it  to  scorn.  Sacrifice 
anything  to  keep  the  slaveholding  States  in  the  Union  ? 
God  forbid !  we  will  rather  build  a  bridge  of  gold,  and 
pay  their  toll  over  it,  —  accompany  them  out  with  glad 
noise  of  trumpets,  and  "  speed  the  parting  guest."  Let 
them  not  "  stand  on  the  order  of  their  going,  but  go  at 
once  "  I  Let  them  take  the  forts,  empty  our  arsenals  and 

*  Since  this  was  said,  Mr.  Adams  has  had  his  reward,  —  winning  high 
office  by  treachery  to  his  party,  as  his  father  did  before,  and  as  liis  grand 
father  tried  to  do  and  failed. 


DISUNION.  355 

sub-treasuries,  and  we  will  lend  them,  beside,  jewels  of 
gold  and  jewels  of  silver,  and  Egypt  be  glad  when  they 
are  departed.  [Laughter  and  applause.] 

But  let  the  world  distinctly  understand  why  they  go,  — 
to  save  slavery ;  and  why  we  rejoice  in  their  departure,  — 
because  we  know  their  declaration  of  independence  is  the 
jubilee  of  the  slave.  The  eyes  of  the  world  are  fixed  on 
us  as  the  great  example  of  self-government.  When  this 
Union  goes  to  pieces,  it  is  a  shock  to  the  hopes  of  the 
struggling  millions  of  Europe.  All  lies  bear  bitter  fruit. 
To-day  is  the  inevitable  fruit  of  our  fathers'  faithless  com 
promise  in  1787.  For  the  sake  of  the  future,  in  freedom's 
name,  let  thinking  Europe  understand  clearly  why  we 
sever.  They  saw  Mr.  Seward  paint,  at  Chicago,  our 
utter  demoralization,  Church  and  State,  government  and 
people,  all  classes,  educated  and  uneducated,  —  all  brought 
by  the  Slave  Power,  he  said,  to  think  slavery  a  blessing, 
and  do  anything  to  save  it.  So  utter  did  he  consider  this 
demoralization,  that  he  despaired  of  native  Americans,  and 
trusted  to  the  hunted  patriots  and  the  refuse  of  Europe, 
which  the  emigrant-trains  bore  by  his  house,  for  the  salva 
tion  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  To-day,  they  see  that 
very  man  kneeling  to  that  Slave  Power,  and  begging  her 
to  take  all,  but  only  consent  to  grant  him  such  a  Union, 
—  Union  with  such  a  power!  How,  then,  shall  Kossuth 
answer,  when  Austria  laughs  him  to  scorn  ?  Shall  Eu 
rope  see  the  slaveholder  kick  the  reluctant  and  kneeling 
North  out  of  such  a  Union  ?  How,  then,  shall  Gari 
baldi  dare  look  in  the  face  of  Napoleon  ?  If,  therefore, 
it  were  only  to  honor  self-government,  to  prove  that  it 
educates  men,  not  pedlers  and  cowards,  let  us  proclaim 
our  faith  that  honest  labor  can  stand  alone ;  its  own  right 
hand  amply  able  to  earn  its  bread  and  defend  its  rights 
[applause]  ;  and,  if  it  were  not  so,  our  readiness  at  any 
cost  to  welcome  disunion  when  it  conies  bringing  freedom 


356  DISUNION. 

to  four  million  of  hapless  slaves !  [Applause.]  What  a 
sad  comment  on  free  institutions,  that  they  have  produced 
a  South  of  tyrants,  and  a  North  of  cowards ;  a  South, 
ready  to  face  any  peril  to  save  slavery,  and  a  North  un 
willing  to  risk  a  dollar  to  serve  freedom  ? 

Why  do  I  set  so  little  value  on  the  Union  ?  Because 
I  consider  it  a  failure  ;  certainly,  so  far  as  slavery  is  con 
cerned,  it  is  a  failure.  If  you  doubt  me,  look  at  the  pic 
ture  of  its  effects  which  Mr.  Seward  painted  at  Chicago. 

Look  at  our  history.  Under  it,  700,000  slaves  have 
increased  to  4,000,000.  We  have  paid  1800,000,000 
directly  to  the  support  of  slavery.  This  secession  will 
cost  the  Union  and  business  $  200,000,000  more.  The 
loss  which  this  disturbing  force  has  brought  to  our  trade 
and  industry,  within  sixty  years,  it  would  be  safe  to  call 
$  500,000,000.  Is  the  Union  a  pecuniary  success  ?  Un 
der  it,  Slavery  has  been  strong  enough  to  .rule  the  nation 
for  sixty  years,  and  now  breaks  it  to  pieces  because  she 
can  rule  no  longer.  Under  it,  public  morals  have  been  so 
lowered,  that  while,  at  its  outset,  nine  men  out  of  ten  were 
proud  to  be  called  Abolitionists,  now  nine  out  of  ten 
would  deem  it  not  only  an  insult,  but  a  pecuniary  injury, 
to  be  charged  with  being  so.  Ever  since  it  existed,  its 
friends  have  confessed  that,  to  save  the  Union,  it  was 
necessary  and  proper  to  crush  free  speech.  Witness  John 
Adams's  sedition  laws.  Witness  mobs  of  well-dressed 
nerchants  in  every  Northern  city  now.  Witness  one 
lalf  of  the  Republican  party  lamenting  free  speech,  this 
hour,  throughout  the  North. 

Mr.  Seward  confessed,  at  Chicago,  that  neither  free 
ipeech  nor  free  suffrage  existed  in  one  half  of  the  States. 
No  Northern  man  can  trade,  live,  or  talk  there.  For 
twenty  years,  men  have  been  mobbed,  robbed,  lynched, 
Imng,  and  burned  there,  solely  for  loving  liberty ;  and 
while  the  Federal  Government  never  lifted  a  finger  to 


DISUNION. 

prevent  or  punish  it,  the  very  States  whose  citizens  have 
been  outraged  have  been  too  indifferent  even  to  remon 
strate.  Massachusetts,  who  once  remonstrated,  saw  her 
own  agent  mobbed  out  of  Charleston  with  her  full  con 
sent. 

Before  the  Union  existed,  "Washington  and  Jefferson 
uttered  the  boldest  antislavery  opinions  ;  to-day  they 
would  be  lynched  in  their  own  homes  ;  and  their  senti 
ments  have  been  mobbed  this  very  year  in  every  great 
city  of  the  North.  The  Fugitive  Slave  Bill  could  never 
have  been  passed  nor  executed  in  the  days  of  Jay.  Now 
no  man  who  hopes  for  office  dares  to  insist  that  it  is  un 
constitutional.  Slavery  has  turned  our  churches  of  Christ 
to  churches  of  commerce. 

John  Quincy  Adams,  the  child  of  our  earlier  civilization, 
said  the  Union  was  worthless,  weighed  against  that  liberty 
it  was  meant  to  secure.  Mr.  Seward,  the  child  of  the 
Union,  says  there  are  few  men,  and  there  ought  to  be  few, 
who  would  not  prefer  saving  the  Union  to  securing  free 
dom  ;  and  standing  to-day  at  the  head  of  nineteen  millions 
of  freemen,  he  confesses  he  does  not  deem  it  prudent  to 
express  his  "  most  cherished  convictions  "  on  this  subject,* 
while  every  honest  man  fears,  and  three  fourths  of  Mr. 
Seward's  followers  hope,  that  the  North,  in  this  conflict  of 
right  and  wrong,  will,  spite  of  Horace  Greeley's  warning, 
"Love  liberty  less  than  profit,  dethrone  conscience,  and 
set  up  commerce  in  its  stead."  You  know  it.  A  Union 

*  Mr.  Seward  said,  at  St.  Paul,  Last  September  :  "  I  do  not  believe  there 
has  been  one  day,  since  1787,  until  now,  when  slavery  had  any  power  in  this 
government,  except  what  it  derived  from  buying  up  men  of  weak  virtue,  no 
principle,  and  gi-eat  cupidity,  and  terrifying  men  of  weak  nerve,  in  the  Free 

States Fellow-citizens,  either  in  one  way  or  the  other,  whether  you 

agree  with  me  in  attributing  it  to  the  interposition  of  Divine  Providence  or 
not,  this  battle  has  been  fought,  this  victory  has  been  won.  Slavery  to-day 
is,  for  the  first  time,  not  only  powerless,  but  without  influence  in  the  Ameri 
can  republic For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  republic,  the 


358  DISUNION. 

whose  despotism  is  so  cruel  and  searching  that  one  half 
our  lawyers  and  one  half  our  merchants  stifle  conscience 
for  bread,  —  in  the  name  of  Martin  Luther  and  John  Mil 
ton,  of  Algernon  Sidney  and  Henry  Vane,  of  John  Jay 
and  Samuel  Adams,  I  declare  such  a  Union  a  failure. 

It  is  for  the  chance  of  saving  such  a  Union  that  Mr. 
Seward  and  Mr.  Adams  break  in  Washington  all  the 
promises  of  the  canvass,  and  countenance  measures  which 
stifle  the  conscience  and  confuse  the  moral  sense  of  the 
North.  Say  not  that  my  criticism  is  harsh.  I  know 
their  pretence.  It  is,  we  must  conciliate,  compromise, 
postpone,  practise  finesse,  make  promises  or  break  them, 
do  anything,  to  gain  time  and  concentrate  the  North 
against  slavery.  Our  fathers  tried  that  policy  in  1787. 
That  they  miserably  failed  is  proved  by  a  Capitol  filled 
with  knaves  and  traitors,  yet  able  to  awe  and  ruin  honest 
men.  It  was  tried  in  1821,  and  failed.  It  was  tried  in 
1850,  and  failed.  Who  is  audacious  enough  to  ask  an 
other  trial  ?  The  Republicans  say  :  "  Conciliate,  use  soft 
language,  organize  —  behind  the  door  —  bands  of  volun 
teers  ;  and  when  we  have  saved  Washington,  we  may 
dare  speak  out."  That  is  good  policy  for  midnight  con 
spirators.  But  if  we  are  a  government,  if  we  are  a  nation, 
we  should  say :  "  Tell  the  truth  !  If  coercion  is  our  pol 
icy,  tell  the  truth.  Call  for  volunteers  in  every  State, 
and  vindicate  the  honor  of  the  nation  in  the  light  of  the 
sun  !  "  [Applause.] 

Slave  Power  has  not  even  the  power  to  terrify  or  alarm  the  freeman  so  as 
to  make  him  submit,  and  scheme,  and  coincide,  and  compromise.  It  rails 
now  with  a,  feeble  voice,  as  it  thundered  in  our  ears  for  twenty  or  thirty  years 
past.  With  a  feeble  and  muttering  voice,  they  cry  out  that  they  will  tear  the 
Union  to  pieces.  Who  's  afraid  ?  They  complain  that,  if  we  will  not  sur 
render  our  principles,  and  our  system,  and  our  right  —  being  a  majority  — 
to  rule,  and  if  we  will  not  accept  their  system  and  such  rules  as  they  will 
give  us,  they  will  go  out  of  the  Union.  Who 's  afraid  1  Nobody  's  afiaid 
nobody  can  be  bought."  (Yet  now  Mr.  Seward  himself  trembles  !) 


DISUNION.  359 

The  cunning  which  equivocates  to-day,  in  order  to  se 
cure  a  peaceful  inauguration  on  the  4th  of  March,  will 
yield  up  all  its  principles  before  the  1st  of  July.  Beside, 
when  opiate  speeches  have  dulled  the  Northern  conscience, 
and  kneeling  speeches  have  let  down  its  courage,  who  can 
be  sure  that  even  Seward's  voice,  if  he  retain  the  wish, 
can  conjure  up  again  such  a  North  as  stands  face  to  face 
with  Southern  arrogance  to-day  ? 

The  Union,  then,  is  a  failure.  What  harm  can  come 
from  disunion,  and  what  good  ? 

The  seceding  States  will  form  a  Southern  Confederacy. 
We  may  judge  of  its  future  from  the  history  of  Mexico. 
The  Gulf  States  intend  to  reopen  the  slave-trade.  If 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  Virginia,  Maryland,  and  North 
Carolina  secede,  the  opening  of  that  trade  will  ruin  them, 
and  they  will  gravitate  to  us,  free.  Louisiana  cannot 
secede,  except  on  paper ;  the  omnipotent  West  needs  her 
territory,  as  the  mouth  of  its  river.  She  must  stay  with 
us  as  a  State  or  a  conquered  province,  and  may  have  her 
choice.  [Laughter.]  Beside,  she  stands  on  sugar,  and 
free-trade  bankrupts  her.  Consider  the  rest  of  the  Slave 
States  as  one  power,  how  can  it  harm  us  ?  Let  us  see 
the  ground  of  Mr.  Seward's  fears.  Will  it  increase  our 
expenses  or  lessen  our  receipts  ?  No  ;  every  one  of  those 
States  costs  the  Union  more  than  it  contributes  to  it. 
Can  it  harm  us  by  attacks  ?  States  without  commerce  or 
manufactures,  and  with  an  army  of  four  millions  of  natural 
enemies  encamped  among  them,  have  given  bonds  to  keep 
the  peace.  Will  they  leave  us  so  small  and  weak  by  going 
that  we  cannot  stand  alone  ?  Let  us  see.  There  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  Free  States,  except  California, 
will  not  cling  together.  Idem  velle,  idem  nolle,  —  to  like 
and  dislike  the  same  things,  says  the  Latin  proverb,  is 
friendship.  When  a  great  number  of  persons  agree  in  a 
great  number  of  things,  that  insures  a  union  ;  that  is  not 


360  DISUNION. 

the  case  with  the  North  and  South,  therefore  we  separate ; 
that  is  the  case  with  the  whole  North,  therefore  we  shall 
remain  united.  How  strong  shall  we  be  ?  Our  territory 
will  be  twice  as  large  as  Austria,  three  times  as  large  as 
France,  four  times  as  large  as  Spain,  six  times  as  large  as 
Italy,  seven  times  as  large  as  Great  Britain.  Those  na 
tions  have  proved,  for  a  considerable  period,  that  they  had 
sufficient  land  to  stand  on.  Our  population  will  be  about 
nineteen  millions,  —  more  than  the  Union  had  in  1840.  I 
do  not  think  we  were  much  afraid  of  anybody  in  1840. 
Our  blood  is  largely  Yankee,  a  race  that  saved  Carolina 
from  her  own  Tories,  in  the  Revolution.  [Laughter.] 
Without  that  hinderance,  we  could  fight  now,  certainly,  as 
well  as  we  did  then  ;  and  then,  with  three  million  men 
only,  we  measured  swords  with  the  ablest  nation  of  Eu 
rope,  and  conquered.  I  think,  therefore,  we  have  no 
reason  to  be  very  nervously  anxious  now.  Indeed,  Mr. 
Seward's  picture  of  the  desolation  and  military  weakness 
of  the  divided  States,  if  intended  for  the  North,  is  the 
emptiest  lie  in  his  speech.  I  said  lie;  I  meant  it.  I  will 
tell  you  why.  Because  one  William  H.  Seward  said,  last 
fall,  at  Lansing :  "  We  are  maintaining  a  standing  army  at 
the  heavy  cost  of  one  thousand  dollars  per  man,  and  a 
standing  navy,  —  for  what  ?  to  protect  Michigan  or  Massa 
chusetts,  New  York  or  Ohio  ?  No  ;  there  is  not  a  nation 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  which  would  dare  to  attack  these  Free 
States,  or  any  of  them,  if  they  were  even  disunited.  We 
are  doing  it  in  order  that  slaves  may  not  escape  from  Slave 
States  into  the  Free,  and  to  secure  those  States  from 
domestic  insurrection ;  and  because,  if  we  provoke  a  for 
eign  foe,  slavery  cries  out  that  it  is  in  danger."  Surely 
the  speaker  of  those  words  has  no  right  to  deny  that  our 
expenses  and  danger  will  be  less,  and  our  power  to  meet 
both  greater,  when  the  Slave  States  are  gone. 

Indeed,    everybody  knows    this.     And   this   trembling 


DISUNION.  361 

dread  of  losing  the  Union,  which  so  frightens  the  people 
that,  in  view  of  it,  Mr.  Seward,  as  a  practical  man,  dares 
not  now  tell,  as  he  says,  what  he  really  thinks  and  wishes, 
is  the  child  of  his  and  Webster's  insincere  idolatry  of  the 
Union.  To  serve  party  and  personal  ambition,  they  made 
a  god  of  the  Union ;  and  to-day  their  invention  returns  to 
plague  the  inventors.  They  made  the  people  slaves  to  a 
falsehood ;  and  that  same  deluded  people  have  turned 
their  fetters  into  gags  for  Mr.  Seward's  lips.  Thank  God 
for  the  retribution ! 

But  the  Union  created  commerce ;  disunion  will  kill  it. 

The  Union  the  mother  of  commerce  ?  I  doubt  it.  I 
question  whether  the  genius  and  energy  of  the  Yankee 
race  are  not  the  parent  of  commerce  and  the  fountain  of 
wealth,  much  more  than  the  Union.  That  race,  in  Hol 
land,  first  created  a  country,  and  then,  standing  on  piles, 
called  modern  commerce  into  being.  That  race,  in  Eng 
land,  with  territory  just  wide  enough  to  keep  its  eastern 
and  western  harbors  apart,  monopolized,  for  centuries,  the 
trade  of  the  world,  and  annexed  continents  only  as  coffers 
wherein  to  garner  its  wealth.  Who  shall  say  that  the 
same  blood,  with  only  New  England  for  its  anchorage, 
could  not  drag  the  wealth  of  the  West  into  its  harbors  ? 
Who  shall  say  that  the  fertile  lands  of  Virginia  and  the 
Mississippi  enrich  us  because  they  will  to  do  so,  and  not 
because  they  are  compelled  ?  As  long  as  New  England 
is  made  of  granite,  and  the  nerves  of  her  sons  of  steel, 
she  will  be,  as  she  always  has  been,  the  brain  of  North 
America,  united  or  disunited;  and  harnessing  the  ele 
ments,  steam  and  lightning,  to  her  car  of  conquest,  she 
will  double  the  worth  of  every  prairie  acre  by  her  skill, 
cover  ocean  with  her  canvas,  and  gather  the  wealth  of  the 
Western  hemisphere  into  her  harbors. 

Despite,  then,  of  Seward's  foreboding,  our  confederacy 
will  be  strong,  safe,  and  rich.  Honest  it  will  be,  and 


362  DISUNION. 

therefore  happy.  Its  nobleness  will  be,  that,  laughing  at 
prophets,  and  scorning  chances,  it  has  taken  the  prop  from 
the  slave  system,  and  in  one  night  the  whole  fabric  will 
tumble  to  pieces.  Disunion  is  abolition  I  That  is  all  the 
value  disunion  has  for  me.  I  care  little  for  forms  of  gov 
ernment  or  extent  of  territory;  whether  ten  States  or 
thirty  make  up  the  Union.  No  foreign  state  dare  touch 
us,  united  or  disunited.  It  matters  not  to  me  whether 
Massachusetts  is  worth  one  thousand  millions,  as  now,  or 
two  thousand  millions,  as  she  might  be,  if  she  had  no 
Carolina  to  feed,  protect,  and  carry  the  mails  for.  The 
music  of  disunion  to  me  is,  that  at  its  touch  the  slave 
breaks  into  voice,  shouting  his  jubilee. 

What  supports  slavery?  Northern  bayonets,  calming 
the  masters'  fears.  Mr.  Seward's  words,  which  I  have 
just  quoted,  tell  you^what  he  thinks  the  sole  use  of  our 
army  and  navy.  ^Disunion  leaves  God's  natural  laws  to 
work  their  good  results.  God  gives  every  animal  means 
of  self-protection.  Under  God's  law,  insurrection  is  the 
tyrant's  check.  Let  us  stand  out  of  the  path,  and  allow 
the  Divine  law  to  have  free  course/ 

Next,  Northern  opinion  is  the  opiate  of  Southern  con 
science.  Disunion  changes  that.  Public  opinion  forms 
governments,  and  again  governments  react  to  mould  opin- 
jon._  Here  is'a'  government  just  as  much  permeated  bjr 
slavery  as  China  or  Japan  is  with  idolatry. 

The  Republican  party  take  possession  of  this  govern 
ment.  How  are  they  to  undermine  the  Slave  Power? 
That  power  is  composed,  1st,  of  the  inevitable  influence 
of  wealth,  12,000,000,000,  —  the  worth  of  the  slaves  in 
the  Union,  —  so  much  capital  drawing  to  it  the  sympathy 
of  all  other  capital ;  2d,  of  the  artificial  aristocracy  created 
by  the  three-fifths  slave  basis  of  the  Constitution ;  3d,  by 
the  potent  and  baleful  prejudice  of  color. 

The  aristocracy  of  the  Constitution  !     Where  have  you 


DISUNION.  363 

seen  an  aristocracy  with  half  its  power  ?  You  may  take  a 
small  town  here  in  New  England,  with  a  busy,  active 
population  of  2,500,  and  three  or  four  such  men  as  Gov 
ernor  Aikin,  of  South  Carolina,  riding  leisurely  to  the 
polls,  and  throwing  in  their  visiting-cards  for  ballots,  will 
blot  out  the  entire  influence  of  that  New  England  town  in 
the  Federal  Government.  That  is  your  Republicanism ! 
Then,  when  you  add  to  that  the  element  of  prejudice, 
which  is  concentrated  in  the  epithet  that  spells  negro  with 
two  "gg's,"  you  make  the  three-strand  cable  of  the  Slave 
Power,  —  the  projmlipp.  of  rap.p.,  th^otnnipoteiice  of  money, * 
and  the  almost^r^esistible^rjower ^fcsLristficracy: — That  is 
the  Slave  Power. 

How  is  Mr.  Lincoln  to  undermine  it  while  in  the 
Union  ?  Certainly,  by  turning  every  atom  of  patronage 
and  pecuniary  profit  in  the  keeping  of  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  to  the  support  of  freedom.  You  know  the  con 
trary  policy  has  been  always  acted  upon  ever  since  Wash 
ington,  and  been  openly  avowed  ever  since  Fillmore.  No 
man  was  to  receive  any  office  who  was  not  sound  on  the 
slavery  question.  You  remember  the  debate  in  the  Sen 
ate,  when  that  was  distinctly  avowed  to  be  the  policy  of 
Mr.  Fillmore.  You  remember  Mr.  Clay  letting  it  drop 
out  accidentally,  in  debate,  that  the  slaveholders  had 
always  closely  watched  the  Cabinet,  and  kept  a  majority 
there,  in  order  to  preserve  the  ascendency  of  slavery. 
This  is  the  policy  which,  in  the  course  of  fifty  years,  has 
built  up  the  Slave  Power.  Now,  how  is  the  Republican 
party  ever  to  beat  that  power  down  ?  By  reversing  that 
policy,  in  favor  of  freedom.  Cassius  Clay  said  to  me,  five 
years  ago :  "  If  you  will  allow  me  to  have  the  patronage 
of  this  government  five  years,  and  exercise  it  remorse 
lessly,  down  to  New  Orleans ;  never  permit  any  one  but 
an  avowed  Abolitionist  to  hold  office  under  the  Federal 
Government,  I  will  revolutionize  the  Slave  States  them- 


364  DISUNION. 

selves  in  two  administrations."  That  is  a  scheme  of  effi 
cient  politics.  But  the  Republican  party  has  never  yet 
professed  any  such  policy. 

Mr.  Greeley,  on  the  contrary,  avowed,  in  the  Tribune, 
that  he  had  often  voted  for  a  slaveholder  willingly,  and  he 
never  expected  the  time  would  come  when  he  should  lay 
down  the  principle  of  refusing  to  vote  for  a  slaveholder  to 
office ;  and  that  sentiment  has  not  only  been  reiterated 
by  others  of  the  Republican  party,  but  has  never  been 
disavowed  by  any  one.  But  suppose  you  could  develop 
politics  up  to  this  idea,  that  the  whole  patronage  of  the 
government  should  be  turned  in  favor  of  abolition ;  it 
would  take  two  or  three  generations  to  overthrow  what 
the  Slave  Power  has  done  in  sixty  years,  with  the  strength 
of  aristocracy  and  the  strength  of  prejudice  on  its  side. 
With  only  the  patronage  of  the  government  in  its  control, 
the  Republican  party  must  work  slowly  to  regenerate  the 
government  against  those  two  elements  in  opposition, 
when,  with  them  in  its  favor,  the  Slave  Power  has  been 
some  sixty  years  in  bringing  about  such  a  result  as  we  see 
around  us.  To  reverse  this,  and  work  only  with  the 
patronage  of  the  government,  it  would  take  you  long  to 
effect  the  cure.  In  my  soul,  I  believe  that  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union,  sure  to  result  speedily  in  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  would  be  a  lesser  evil  than  the  slow,  faltering, 
diseased,  gradual  dying-out  of  slavery,  constantly  poison 
ing  us  with  the  festering  remains  of  this  corrupt  political, 
social,  and  literary  state.  I  believe  a  sudden,  conclusive, 
definite  disunion,  resulting  in  the  abolition  of  slavery,  in 
the  disruption  of  the  Northern  mind  from  all  connection 
with  it,  all  vassalage  to  it,  immediately,  would  be  a  better, 
healthier,  and  more  wholesome  cure,  than  to  let  the  Re 
publican  party  exert  this  gradual  influence  through  the 
power  of  the  government  for  thirty  or  sixty  years. 

We  are  seeking  the  best  way  to   get   rid   of  a   great 


DISUNION.  365 

national  evil.  Mr.  Seward's  way  is  to  take  the  Union 
as  a  "  fixed  fact,"  and  then  educate  politics  up  to  a  certain 
level.  In  that  way  we  have  to  live,  like  Sinbad,  with 
Gushing  and  Hillard  and  Hallett  and  O'Connor  and 
Douglas,  and  men  like  them,  on  our  shoulders,  for  the 
next  thirty  or  forty  years ;  with  the  Deweys  and  Presi 
dent  Lords,  and  all  that  class  of  men,  —  and  all  this  timid 
servility  of  the  press,  all  this  lack  of  virtue  and  manhood, 
all  this  corruption  of  the  pulpit,  all  this  fossil  hunkerism, 
all  this  selling  of  the  soul  for  a  mess  of  pottage,  is  to 
linger,  working  in  the  body  politic  for  thirty  or  forty 
years,  and  we  are  gradually  to  eliminate  the  disease ! 
What  an  awful  future  !  What  a  miserable  chronic  dis 
ease  !  What  a  wreck  of  a  noble  nation  the  American 
Republic  is  to  be  for  fifty  years  ! 

And  why  ?  Only  to  save  a  piece  of  parchment  that  El- 
bridge  Gerry  had  instinct  enough  to  think  did  not  deserve 
saving,  as  long  ago  as  1789  !  Mr.  Seward  would  leave 
New  York  united  to  New  Orleans,  with  the  hope  (sure  to 
be  balked)  of  getting  freer  and  freer  from  year  to  year.  I 
want  to  place  her,  at  once,  in  the  same  relation  towards 
New  Orleans  that  she  bears  to  Liverpool.  You  can  do  it, 
the  moment  you  break  the  political  tie.  What  will  that 
do  ?  I  will  tell  you.  The  New  York  pulpit  is  to-day  one 
end  of  a  magnetic  telegraph,  of  which  the  New  Orleans 
cotton-market  is  the  other.  The  New  York  stock-market 
is  one  end  of  the  magnetic  telegraphyand'  the  Charleston 
Mercury  is  the  other.  'New  York  statesmanship  !  Why, 
even  in  the  lips  of  Seward,  it  is  sealed,  or  half  sealed,  by 
considerations  which  take  their  rise  in  the  canebrakes  and 
cotton-fields  of  fifteen  States.  Break  up  this  Union,  and 
the  ideas  of  South  Carolina  will  have  no  more  influence 
on  Seward  than  those  of  Palmerston.  The  wishes  of 
New  Orleans  would  have  no  more  influence  on  Chief 
Justice  Bigelow  than  the  wishes  of  London.  The  threats 


366  DISUNION. 

of  Davis,  Toombs,  and  Keitt  will  have  no  more  influence 
on  the  Tribune  than  the  thunders  of  the  London  Times 
or  the  hopes  of  the  Chartists.  Our  Bancrofts  will  no 
longer  write  history  with  one  eye  fixed  on  Democratic 
success,  nor  our  "Websters  invent  "  laws  of  God "  to 
please  Mr.  Senator  Douglas.  We  shall  have  as  close 
connection,  as  much  commerce  ;  WQ  shall  still  have  a  com 
mon  language,  a  common  faith,  and  common  race,  the 
same  common  social  life  ;  we  shall  intermarry  just  the 
same ;  we  shall  have  steamers  running  just  as  often  and 
just  as  rapidly  as  now.  But  what  cares  Dr.  Dewey  for 
the  opinion  of  Liverpool  ?  Nothing !  What  cares  he  for 
the  opinion  of  Washington  ?  Everything  !  Break  the 
link,  and  New  York  springs  up  like  the  fountain  relieved 
from  a  mountain  load,  and  assumes  her  place  among  de 
cent  cities.  I  mean  no  special  praise  of  the  English  courts, 
pulpit,  or  press  by  these  comparisons ;  my  only  wish  is  to 
show  that,  however  close  the  commercial  relations  might 
continue  to  be  between  North  and  South,  and  in  spite  of 
that  common  faith  and  common  tongue  and  common  his 
tory,  which  would  continue  to  hold  these  thirty  States  to 
gether,  still,  as  in  the  case  of  this  country  and  England, 
wedded  still  by  those  ties,  the  mere  sundering  of  a  political 
union  would  leave  each  half  free,  as  the  disunion  of  1776 
did,  from  a  large  share  of  the  corrupt  influence  of  the  other. 
That  is  what  I  mean  by  disunion.  I  mean  to  take  Mas 
sachusetts,  and  leave  her  exactly  as  she  is,  commercially. 
She  shall  manufacture  for  the  South  just  as  Lancashire 
does.  I  know  what  an  influence  the  South  has  on  the 
.manufacturers  and  clergy  of  England; — that  is  inevitable, 
in  the  nature  of  things.  We  have  only  human  nature  to 
work  with,  and  we  cannot  raise  it  up  to  the  level  of  angels. 
We  shall  never  get  beyond  the  sphere  of  human  selfish 
ness,  but  we  can  lift  this  human  nature  up  to  a  higher 
level,  if  we  can  but  remove  the  weight  of  that  political 


DISUNION.  367 

relation  which  now  rests  upon  it.  What  I  would  do  with 
Massachusetts  is  this :  I  would  make  her,  in  relation  to 
South  Carolina,  just  what  England  is.  I  would  that  I 
could  float  her  off,  and  anchor  her  in  mid-ocean  I 

Severed  from  us,  South  Carolina  must  have  a  govern 
ment.  You  see  now-  a  reign  of  terror,  —  threats  to  raise 
means.  That  can  only  last  a  day.  Some  system  must 
give  support  to  a  government.  It  is  an  expensive  luxury. 
You  must  lay  taxes  to  support  it.  Where  will  you  levy 
your  taxes  ?  They  must  rest  on  productions.  Produc 
tions  are  the  result  of  skilled  labor.  You  must  educate 
your  laborer,  if  you  would  have  the  means  for  carrying  on 
a  government.  Despotisms  are  cheap  ;  free  governments 
are  a  dear  luxury,  —  the  machinery  is  complicated  and 
expensive.  If  the  South  wants  a  theoretical  republic,  she 
must  pay  for  it,  —  she  must  have  a  basis  for  taxation. 
How  will  she  pay  for  it  ?  Why,  Massachusetts,  with  a 
million  workmen,  —  men,  women,  and  children,  —  the 
little  feet  that  can  just  toddle  bringing  chips  from  the 
wood -pile,  —  Massachusetts  only  pays  her  own  board  and 
lodging,  and  lays  by  about  four  per  cent  a  year.  And  South 
Carolina,  with  one  half  idlers,  and  the  other  half  slaves,  — 
a  slave  doing  only  half  the  work  of  a  freeman,  —  only  one 
quarter  of  the  population  actually  at  work,  —  how  much  do 
you  suppose  she  lays  up  ?  Lays  up  a  loss !  By  all  the 
laws  of  political  economy,  she  lays  up  bankruptcy ;  of 
course  she  does  !  Put  her  out,  and  let  her  see  how  shel 
tered  she  has  been  from  the  laws  of  trade  by  the  Union  ! 
The  free  labor  of  the  North  pays  her  plantation  patrol , 
we  pay  for  her  government,  we  pay  for  her  postage,  and 
for  everything  else.  Launch  her  out,  and  let  her  see  if 
she  can  make  the  year's  ends  meet !  And  when  she  tries, 
she  must  educate  her  labor  in  order  to  get  the  basis  for 
taxation.  Educate  slaves !  Make  a  locomotive  with  ita 
furnaces  of  open  wire-work,  fill  them  with  anthracite  coal, 


368  DISUNION. 

and  when  you  have  raised  it  to  white  heat,  mount  and 
drive  jt  through  a  powder-magazine,  and  you  are  safe, 
compared  with  a  slaveholding  community  educating  its 
slaves.  But  South  Carolina  must  do  it,  in  order  to  get 
the  basis  for  taxation  to  support  an  independent  govern 
ment.  The  moment  she  does  it,  she  removes  the  safe 
guard  of  slavery.  What  is  the  contest  in  Virginia  now  ? 
Between  the  men  who  want  to  make  their  slaves  mechan 
ics,  for  the  increased  wages  it  will  secure,  and  the  men 
who  oppose,  for  fear  of  the  influence  it  will  have  on  the 
general  security  of  slave  property  and  white  throats.  Just 
that  dispute  will  go  on,  wherever  the  Union  is  dissolved. 
Slavery  comes  to  an  end  by  the  laws  of  trade.  Hang  up 
your  Sharpe's  rifle,  my  valorous  friend !  The  slave  does 
not  ask  the  help  of  your  musket.  He  only  says,  like  old 
Diogenes  to  Alexander,  "  Stand  out  of  my  light !  "  Just 
take  your  awkward  proportions,  you  Yankee  Democrat 
and  Republican,  out  of  the  light  and  heat  of  God's  laws 
of  political  economy,  and  they  will  melt  the  slave's  chains 
away  ! 

Indeed,  I  much  doubt  whether  the  South  can  maintain 
her  cotton  culture  at  all,  as  a  separate,  slaveholding  gov 
ernment.  Cotton  is  only  an  annual  in  the  United  States. 
In  St.  Domingo  and  the  tropics  it  is  a  tree  lasting  from 
five  to  twenty  years.  Within  the  Union  it  is,  then, 
strictly  speaking,  a  forced  product ;  or  at  least  it  touches 
the  highest  northern  belt  of  possible  culture,  only  possible 
there  under  very  favorable  circumstances.  We  all  know 
how  hard  and  keen  is  the  competition  of  this  generation  ;" 
men  clutching  bread  only  by  restless  hands  and  brains. 
Expose  now  our  cotton  to  the  full  competition  of  India, 
Africa,  and  the  tropics ;  burden  it  by  taxes  with  the  full 
cost  of  a  slaveholding  government,  necessarily  an  expen 
sive  one,  —  a  tax  it  has  never  yet  felt,  having  shirked 
it  on  to  the  North  ;  quicken  other  cotton-fields  into 


DISUNION.  369 

greater  activity  by  the  unwillingness  of  France  and  Eng 
land  to  trust  their  supply  to  States  convulsed  by  political 
quarrels ;  —  and  then  see  if,  in  such  circumstances,  the 
price  of  cotton  in  the  markets  of  the  world  will  not  rule  so 
low,  that  to  raise  it  by  slovenly  slave-culture  will  not  be 
utter  loss,  —  so  utter  as  to  drive  it  wholly  from  our  States, 
at  least  while  they  remain  Slave  States. 

Indeed,  the  Gulf  States  are  essentially  in  a  feudal  con 
dition,  an  aristocracy  resting  on  slaves,  —  no  middle  class. 
To  sustain  government  on  the  costly  model  of  our  age 
necessitates  a  middle  class  of  trading,  manufacturing  en 
ergy.  The  merchant  of  the  nineteenth  century  spurns  to 
be  a  subordinate.  The  introduction  of  such  a  class  will 
create  in  the  Gulf  States  that  very  irrepressible  conflict 
which  they  leave  us  to  avoid,  —  which,  alive  now  in  the 
Border  States,  makes  these  unwilling  to  secede,  —  which 
once  created  will  soon  undermine  the  aristocracy  of  the 
Gulf  States  and  bring  them  back  to  us  free. 

Take  your  distorted  Union,  your  nightmare  monster, 
out  of  the  light  and  range  of  these  laws  of  trade  and  com 
petition  i  then,  without  any  sacrifice  on  your  part,  slavery 
will  go  to  pieces  !  God  made  it  a  law  of  his  universe,  that 
villany  should  always  be  loss  ;  and  if  you  will  only  not  at 
tempt,  with  your  puny  efforts,  to  stand  betwixt  the  inevit 
able  laws  of  God's  kingdom,  as  you  are  doing  to-day,  and 
have  done  for  sixty  years,  by  the  vigor  that  the  industry 
of  sixteen  States  has  been  able  to  infuse  into  the  sluggish 
veins  of  the  South,  slavery  will  drop  to  pieces  by  the  very 
influence  of  the  competition  of  the,  nineteenth  century. 
That  is  what  we  mean  by  Disunion  J/ 

That  is  my  coercion!  Northern  pulpits  cannonading  the 
Southern  conscience  ;  Northern  competition  emptying  its 
pockets  ;  educated  slaves  awaking  its  fears  ;  civilization 
and  Christianity  beckoning  the  South  into  their  sisterhood. 
Soon  every  breeze  that  sweeps  over  Carolina  will  bring_to 

24 


370  DISUNION. 

our  ears  the  music  of  repentance,  and  even  she  will  carve 
on  her  Palmetto,  "  We  hold  this  truth  to  be  self-evident, 
—  that  all  men  are  created  equal." 

All  hail,  then,  Disunion  !  "  Beautiful  on  the  mountains 
are  the  feet  of  Him  that  bringeth  good  tidings,  that  publish- 
eth  peace,  that  saith  unto  Zion,  Thy  God  reigneth."  The 
sods  of  Bunker  Hill  shall  be  greener,  now  that  their  great 
purpose  is  accomplished.  Sleep  in  peace,  martyr  of  Har 
per's  Ferry  !  —  your  life  was  not  given  in  vain.  Rejoice, 
spirits  of  Fayette  and  Kosciusko  !  —  the  only  stain  upon 
your  swords  is  passing  away.  Soon,  throughout  all  Amer 
ica,  there  shall  be  neither  power  nor  wish  to  hold  a  slave. 


PROGRESS.* 


"  And  Jacob  said  unto  Pharaoh,  The  days  of  the  years  of  my  pilgrimage 
are  an  hundred  and  thirty  years  :  few  and  evil  have  the  days  of  the  years  of 
my  life  been,  and  have  not  attained  unto  the  days  of  the  years  of  the  life  of 
my  fathers  in  the-  days  of  their  pilgrimage." 


T 


HUS  spoke  a  prince  who  had  won  from  his  elder 
brother  both  birthright  and  blessing ;  who  had  seen 
"  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending  "  ;  was  able 
to  say,  "  With  my  staff  I  passed  over  this  Jordan,  and 
now  I  am  become  two  bands  " ;  who  had  seen  God  face  to 
face,  and  still  lived;  to  whom  was  pledged  the  Divine 
promise,  "  I  will  make  of  thee  a  great  nation,  in  thy  seed 
shall  all  the  families  of  the  earth  be  blessed" ;  whose  ears 
had  just  drunk  in  the  glad  tidings  of  his  favorite  son, 
"  Joseph  is  yet  alive ;  he  is  governor  over  all  the  land  of 
Egypt."  Thus  timid  and  disconsolate  gray  hairs  bewail 
their  own  times.  To  most  men,  the  golden  age  is  one 
long  past. 

5ut  Nature  is  ever  growing.  Science  tells  us  every 
ange  is  improvement.  This  globe,  once  a  mass 
molten  granite,  now  blooms  almost,  a.  parading, 
man's  life  and  history.,/  One  may  not  see  it  in  his  own 
short  day.  You  must-stand  afar  off  to  judge  St._Peter's. 
The  shadow  on  the  dial  seems  motionless,  but  it  touches 

*  Address  delivered  before  the  Twenty-eighth  Congregational  Society  in 
Music  Hall,  Boston,  Sunday  forenoon,  February  17,  1861  :  the  mob,  as  be 
fore,  filling  many  parts  of  the  Hall  and  the  avenues  leading  to  it. 


372  .  PROGRESS. 

noon  at  last.  Place  the  ages  side  by  side,  and  see  how 
they  differ.  Three  quarters  of  the  early  kings  of  France 
died  poor  and  in  prison,  by  the  dagger  or  poison  of  their 
rivals.  The  Bjonapartes  stole  large  fortunes  and  half  the 
thrones  of  Europe,  yet  all  died  natural  deaths  in  their 
beds,  and  though  discrowned,  kept  their  enormous  wealth. 
When  the  English  marched  from  Boston  to  Concord, 
they  fired  into  half  the  Whig  dwellings  they  passed. 
When  Lane  crossed  Kansas,  pursuing  Missouri  ruffians, 
»he  sent  men  ahead  to  put  a  guard  at  every  border-ruffian's 
door,  to  save  inmate  and  goods  from  harm.  When  Gold 
smith  reminded  England  that  "  a  heart  buried  in  a  dun 
geon  is  as  precious  as  that  seated  on  a  throne,"  there 
were  one  hundred  and  sixty-nine  crimes  punished  with 
death.  Now  not  only  England,  but  every  land  governed 
by  the  English  race,  is  marked  by  the  mildness  of  its 
penal  code,  only  one,  two,  or  three  classes  of  offenders 
being  now  murdered  by  law. 

It  is  not  yet  fifteen  years  since  the  first  Woman's 
Rights  Convention  was  held.  The  first  call  for  one  in 
Massachusetts,  a  dozen  years  ago,  bore  a  name  heard 
often  in  manful  protest  against  popular  sins,  —  that  of 
Waldo  Emerson.  But  in  that  short  fifteen  years,  a  dozen 
States  have  changed  their  laws.  One  New  York  statute, 
a  year  old,  securing  to  married  women  control  of  their 
wages,  will  do  more  to  save  New  York  City  from  being 
grog-shop  and  brothel  than  a  thousand  pulpits  could  do. 
When  Kansas  went  to  Topeka  to  frame  a  Constitution, 
one  third  of  the  Convention  were  in  favor  of  giving 
women  the  right  to  vote.  Truly,  the  day  breaks.  If 
time  served,  I  could  find  a  score  of  familiar  instances.  It 
is  enough  to  state  the  general  principle,  that  civilization 
produces  wants.  Wants  awaken  intellect.  To  gratify 
them  disciplines  intellect.  The  keener  the  want,  the 
lustier  the  growth.  The  power  to  use  new  truths  in 


PROGRESS.  373 

science,  new  ideas  in  morals  or  art,  obliterates  rank,  and 
makes  the  lowest  man  useful  or  necessary  to  the  state. 
Popes  and  kings  no  longer  mark  the  ages;  but  Luther 
and  Raphael,  Fulton  and  Faust,  Howard  and  Rousseau. 
A  Massachusetts  mechanic,  Eli  Whitney,  made  cotton 
king;  a  Massachusetts  printer,  William  Lloyd  Garrison, 
has  undermined  its  throne.  Thus  civilization  insures 
equality.  Types  are  the  fathers  of  democrats. 

It  is  not  always7  however.,  ideas  «~>y  mo^l  pvi>nni'plf  ^  that      /   / 


push  the  world  forward.     Selfish    interests  J2JaJ  a 
jpnrt  ™  t-lig.  work.  _Our  Revolution  of  1776  succeeded  be 
cause  trade  and  wealth  joined  hands  with  principle  and 
enthusiasm,  —  a  union  rare  in  the  history  of  revolutions. 
Northern  merchants  fretted  at  England's  refusal  to  allow 
them  direct  trade   with  Holland  and  the   West   Indies. 
Virginia  planters,  heavily  mortgaged,  welcomed  anything 
which  would  postpone  payment  of  their  debts,  —  ar-motive 
that  doubtless  avails  largely  among  Secessionists  now.     So  •  , 
merchant   and   planter  joined   heartily   with   hot-headed~H 
Sam  Adams,  and  reckless  Joseph  Warren,  penniless  John 
Adams,   that   brilliant   adventurer   Alexander   Hamilton, 
and  that  young  scapegrace  Aaron  Burr,  to  get  indepen 
dence.     [Laughter.]     To  merchant,  independence  meant 
only  direct  trade,  —  to  planter,  cheating  his  creditors. 

Present  conflict  of  interests  is  another  instrument  of 
progress.  Religious  persecution  planted  these  States  ; 
commercial  persecution  brought  about  the  Revolution  ; 
John  Bull's  perseverance  in  a  seven-years  war  fused  us 
into  one  nation  ;  his  narrow  and  ill-tempered  effort  to  gov 
ern  us  by  stealth,  even  after  the  peace  of  1783,  drove  us 
to  the  Constitution  of  1789. 

I  think  it  was  Coleridge  who  said,  if  he  were  a  clergy 
man  in  Cornwall,  he  should  preach  fifty-two  sermons  a 
year  against  wreckers.     In  the  same  spirit,  I  shall  find  the  , 
best  illustration  of  our  progress  in  the  history  of  the  slave 
question. 


374  PROGRESS. 

Some  men  sit  sad  and  trembling  for  the  future,  because 
the  knell  of  this  Union  has  sounded.  But  the  heavens  are 
almost  all  bright ;  and  if  some  sable  clouds  linger  'on  the 
horizon,  they  have  turned  their  silver  linings  almost  wholly 
to  our  sight.  Every  man  who  possesses  his  soul  in  pa 
tience  sees  that  disunion  is  gain,  disunion  is  peace,  disunion 
is  virtue. 

Thomas  Jefferson  said :  "  It  is  unfortunate  that  the  ef 
forts  of  mankind  to  recover  the  freedom  of  which  they 
have  been  deprived  should  be  accompanied  with  violence, 
with  errors,  and  even  with  crime.  But  while  we  weep 
over  the  means,  we  must  pray  for  the  end." 

We  may  see  our  future  in  the  glass  of  our  past  history. 
The  whole  connection  of  Massachusetts  Colony  with  Eng 
land  was  as  much  disgrace  as  honor  to  both  sides.  On  the 
part  of  England,  it  was  an  attempt  to  stretch  principles 
which  were  common  sense  and  justice  applied  to  an  island, 
but  absurd  and  tyrannical  applied  across  the  ocean.  It 
was  power  without  right,  masked  in  form.  On  the  side 
of  the  Colony,  it  was  petty  shifts,  quibbles,  equivocations, 
cunning  dodges,  white  lies,  ever  the  resource  of  weakness. 
While  England  was  bulldog,  Massachusetts  was  fox. 
Whoever  cannot  take  his  right  openly  by  force,  steals 
what  he  can  by  fraud.  The  Greek  slave  was  a  liar,  as  all 
slaves  are.  Tocqueville  says,  "  Men  are  not  corrupted  by 
the  exercise  of  power,  nor  debased  by  submission  ;  but  by 
the  exercise  of  power  they  think  illegal,  and  submission 
to  a  rule  they  consider  oppressive."  That  sentence  is  a 
key  to  our  whole  colonial  history.  .  When  we  grew  strong  \ 
enough  to  dare  to  be  frank,  we  broke  with  England. 
Timid  men  wept ;  but  now  we  see  how  such  disunion  was 
gain,  peace,  and  virtue.  Indeed,  seeming  disunion  was 
real  union.  We  were  then  two  snarling  hounds,  leashed  | 
together ;  we  are  now  one  in  a  true  marriage,  one  in  I 
blood,  trade,  thought,  religion,  history,  in  mutual  love  and 


PROGRESS.  375 

respect ;  where  one  then  filched  silver  from  the  other, 
each  now  pours  gold  into  the  other's  lap  ;  our  only  rivalry, 
which  shall  do  most  honor  to  the  blood  of  Shakespeare  and 
Milton,  of  Franklin  and  Kane. 

In  that  glass  we  see  the  story  of  North  and  South  since 
1787,  and  I  doubt  not  for  all  coming  time.  The  people  of 
the  States  between  the  Gulf  and  the  great  Lakes,  yes, 
between  the  Gulf  and  the  Pole,  are  essentially  one.  We 
are  one  in  blood,  trade,  thought,  religion,  history  ;  nothing 
can  long  divide  us.  /If  we  had  let  our  Constitution  grow, 
&&  the  English  did,  as  oaks  do,  we  had  never  passed 
through  such  scenes  as  the  present.  The  only  thing  that 
divides  us  now,  is  the  artificial  attempt,  in  1787,  to  force 
us  into  an  unripe  union.  Some  lawyers  got  together  and 
wrote  out  a  constitution.  The  people  and  great  interests  of 
the  land,  wealth,  thought,  fashion,  and  creed,  immediately 
laid  itjupon  the  shelf,  and  proceeded  to  grow  one  for  them 
selves.  \  The  treaty  power  sufficed  to  annex  a  continent, 
and  ~change  the  whole  nature  of  the  government.  The 
war  power  builds  railroads  to  the  Pacific.  Right  to  regu 
late  commerce  builds  observatories  and  dredges  out  lakes. 
Right  to  tax  protects  manufactures  ;  and  had  we  wanted  a 
king,  some  ingenious  Yankee  would  have  found  the  right 
to  have  one  clearly  stated  in  the  provision  for  a  well-regu 
lated  militia.  [Laughter.]  All  that  is  valuable  in  the 
United  States  Constitution  is  a  thousand  years  old.  What 
is  good  is  not  *iew,  and  what  is  new  is  not  good.  That 
vaunted  statesmanship  which  concocts  constitutions  never 
has  amounted  to  anything.  The  English  Constitution, 
always  found  equal  to  any  crisis,  is  an  old  mansion,  often 
repaired,  with  quaint  additions,  and  seven  gables,  each  of 
different  pattern.  Our  Constitution  is  a  new  clapboard 
house,  so  square  and  sharp  it  almost  cuts  you  to  look  at 
it,  staring  with  white  paint  and  green  blinds,  as  if  dropped 
in  the  landscape,  or  come  out  to  spend  an  afternoon. 
[Laughter.! 


376  PROGRESS. 

The  trouble  now  is,  that,  in  regard  to  the  most  turbu 
lent  question  of  the  age,  our  politicians  and  a  knot  of 
privileged  slaveholders  are  trying  to  keep  the  people  in 
side  of  this  parchment  band.  Like  Lycurgus,  they  would 
mould  the  people  to  fit  the  Constitution,  instead  of  cutting 
the  Constitution  to  fit  the  people.  Goethe  said,  "  If  you 
plant  an  oak  in  a  floAver-vase,  one  of  two  things  will  hap 
pen, —  the  oak  will  die,  or  the  vase  break."  Our  acorn 
swelled;  the  tiny  leaves  showed  themselves  under  the 
calm  eye  of  Washington,  and  he  laid  down  in  hope.  By 
and  by  the  roots  enlarged,  and  men  trembled.  Of  late, 
Webster  and  Clay,  Everett  and  Botts,  Seward  and  Adams, 
have  been  anxiously  clasping  the  vase,  but  the  roots  have 
burst  abroad  at  last,  and  the  porcelain  is  in  pieces.  [Sen 
sation.]  All  ye  who  love  oaks,  thank  God  for  so  much ! 
That  Union  of  1787  was  one  of  fear ;  we  were  driven  into 
it  by  poverty  and  the  commercial  hostility  of  England. 
As  cold  masses  up  all  things,  —  sticks,  earth,  stones,  and 
water  into  dirty  ice,  —  heat  first  makes  separation,  and 
then  unites  those  of  the  same  nature.  The  heat  of  sixty 
years'  agitation  has  severed  the  heterogeneous  mass ;  wait 
awhile,  it  will  fuse  together  all  that  is  really  one. 

Let  me  show  you  why  I  think  the  present  so  bright, 
and  why  I  believe  that  disunion  is  gain,  peace,  and  honor. 

Why  is  the  present  hour  sunshine  ?  Because,  for  the 
first  time  in  our  history,  we  have  a  North.  That  event 
which  Mr.  Webster  anticipated  and  prophesied  has  come 
to  pass.  In  a  real,  true  sense,  we  have  a  North.  By 
which  I  do  not  mean  that  the  North  rules  ;  though,  politi 
cally  speaking,  the  crowned  and  sceptred  North  does, 
indeed,  take  her  seat  in  that  council  where  she  has  thus 
far  been  only  a  tool.  But  I  mean  that  freemen,  honest 
labor,  makes  itself  heard  in  our  State.  The  North  ceases 
to  be  fox  or  spaniel,  and  puts  on  the  lion.  She  asserts  and 
claims.  She  no  longer  begs,  cheats,  or  buys. 


PROGRESS.  377 

Understand  me.  In  1787,  slave  property,  worth,  per 
haps,  two  hundred  million  of  dollars,  strengthened  by  the 
sympathy  of  all  other  capital,  was  a  mighty  power.  It 
was  the  Rothschild  of  the  state.  The  Constitution,  by  its 
three-fifths  slave  basis,  made  slaveholders  an  order  of  nobles. 
It  was  the  house  of  Hapsburg  joining  hands  with  the 
house  of  Rothschild.  Prejudice  of  race  was  the  third 
strand  of  the  cable,  bitter  and  potent  as  Catholic  ever  bore 
Huguenot,  or  Hungary  ever  spit  on  Moslem.  This  fear 
ful  trinity  won  to  its  side  that  mysterious  omnipotence 
called  Fashion,  —  a  power  which,  without  concerted  ac 
tion,  without  either  thought,  law,  or  religion  on  its  side, 
seems  stronger  than  all  of  them,  and  fears  no  foe  but 
wealth.  Such  was  slavery.  In  its  presence  the  North 
always  knelt  and  whispered.  When  slavery  could  not 
bully,  it  bubbled  its  victim.  In  the  convention  that 
framed  the  Constitution,  Massachusetts  men  said,  as 
Charles  Francis  Adams  says  now,  "  What  matters  a  piti 
ful  three-fifths  slave  basis,  and  guaranty  against  insurrec 
tion,  to  an  institution  on  its  death-bed,  —  gasping  for  its 
last  breath  ?  It  may  conciliate,  —  is  only  a  shadow,  — 
nothing  more,  —  why  stand  on  words?  So  they  shut 
their  eyes,  as  he  does,  on  realities,  and  chopped  excellent 
logic  on  forms. 

But  at  that  moment,  the  Devil  hovered  over  Charles 
ton,  with  a  handful  of  cotton-seed.  [Applause.]  Dropped 
into  sea-island  soil,  and  touched  by  the  magic  of  Massa 
chusetts  brains,  it  poisoned  the  atmosphere  of  thirty 
States.  That  cotton  fibre  was  a  rod  of  empire  such  as 
Caesar  never  wielded.  It  fattened  into  obedience  pulpit 
and  rostrum,  court,  market-place,  and  college,  and  leashed 
New  York  and  Chicago  to  its  chair  of  state.  Beware, 
Mr.  Adams,  "  he  needs  a  long  spoon  who  sups  with  the 
Devil."  In  the  kaleidoscope  of  the  future,  no  statesman 
eye  can  foresee  the  forms.  God  gives  manhood  but  one 


378  PROGRESS. 

clew  to  success,  —  utter  and  exact  justice  :  that  he  guaran 
tees  shall  be  always  expediency.  Deviate  one  hair's- 
breadth, —  grant  but  a  dozen  slaves,  —  only  the  tiniest 
seed  of  concession, — you  know  not  how  "many  and  tall 
branches  of  mischief  shall  grow  therefrom."  That  hand 
ful  of  cotton-seed  has  perpetuated  a  system  which,  as 
Emerson  says,  "impoverishes  the  soil,  depopulates  the 
country,  demoralizes  the  master,  curses  the  victim,  en 
rages  the  bystander,  poisons  the  atmosphere,  and  hinders 
civilization." 

I  need  not  go  over  the  subsequent  compromises  in  de 
tail.  They  are  always  of  the  same  kind:  mere  words, 
Northern  men  assured  us,  —  barren  concessions.  "  Phys 
ical  geography  and  Asiatic  scenery  "  hindered  any  harm. 
But  the  South  was  always  specially  anxious  to  have  these 
barren  "  words,"  and  marvellously  glad  when  she  got 
them.  Northern  politicians,  in  each  case,  were  either 
bullied  or  cheated,  or  feigned  to  be  bullied,  as  they  are 
about  to  do  now.  And  the  people  were  glad  to  have  it  so. 
I  do  not  know  that  the  politicians  are  a  whit  better  now 
than  then.  I  should  not  be  willing  to  assert  that  Seward 
and  Adams  are  any  more  honest  than  Webster  and  Win 
throp,  and  certainly  they  have  just  as  much  spaniel  ii 
their  make. 

}But  the  gain  to-day  is,  we  have  a  people.  Under  theu 
vigilant  eyes,  mindful  of  their  sturdy  purpose,  sustained 
by  their  determination,  (many  of  our  politicians  act  much 
better.  And) out  of  this  popular  heart  is  groiving  a  Con 
stitution  which  will  wholly  supersede  that  of  1787. 

A  few  years  ago,  while  Pierce  was  President,  the  Re 
publican  party  dared  to  refuse  the  appropriations  for  sup 
port  of  government,  —  the  most  daring  act  ever  ventured 
in  a  land  that  holds  Bunker  Hill  and  Brandywine.  They 
dared  to  persevere  some  twenty  or  thirty  days.  It  seems 
a  trifle  ;  but  it  is  a  very  significant  straw.  Then  for  weeks 


PROGRESS.  379 

when  Banks  was  elected,  and  a  year  ago,  again,  the  whole 
government  was  checked  till  the  Republicans  put  their 
Speaker  in  the  chair.  Now  the  North  elects  her  Presi 
dent,  the  South  secedes.  I  suppose  we  shall  be  bargained 
away  into  compromise.  I  know  the  strength  and  virtue 
of  the  farming  West.  It  is  one  of  the  bright  spots  that 
our  sceptre  tends  there,  rather  than  to  the  seaboard. 
Four  or  eight  years  hence,  when  this  earthquake  will 
repeat  itself,  the  West  may  be  omnipotent,  and  we  shall 
see  brave  things.  It  is  not  the  opinion  of  the  absolute 
majority  which  rules,  but  that  amount  of  public  opinion 
which  can  be  brought  to  bear  on  a  particular  point  at  a 
given  time.  Therefore  the  compact,  energetic,  organized 
Seaboard,  with  the  press  in  its  hand,  rules,  spite  of  the 
wide-spread,  inert,  unorganized  West.  While  the  agri 
cultural  frigate  is  getting  its  broadside  ready,  the  commer 
cial  clipper  has  half  finished  its  slave  voyage. 

Jn  spite  of  Lincoln's  wishes,  therefore,  I  fear  he  will 
never  be  able  to  stand  against  Seward,  Adams,  half  the 
Republican  wire-pullers,  and  the  Seaboard.  But  even 
now,  if  Seward  and  the  rest  had  stood  firm,  as  Lincoln, 
Sumner,  Chase,  Wade,  and  Lovejoy,  and  the  Tribune 
have  hitherto  done,  I  believe  you  might  have  polled  the 
North,  and  had  a  response,  three  to  one  :  "  Let  the  Union 
go  to  pieces,  rather  than  yield  one  inch."  I  know  no 
sublimer  hour  in  history.  The  sight  of  these  two  months 
is  compensation  for  a  life  of  toil.  Never  let  Europe  taunt 
us  again  that  our  blood  is  wholly  cankered  by  gold.  Our 
people  stood,  willing  their  idolized  government  should  go 
to  pieces  for  an  idea.  True,  other  nations  have  done  so. 
England  in  1640,  —  France  in  1791,  —  our  colonies  in 
1775.  Those  were  proud  moments.  But  to-day  touches 
a  nobler  height.  Their  idea  was  their  own  freedom.  To 
day,  the  idea,  loyal  to  which  our  people  willingly  see  their 
Union  wrecked,  is  largely  the  hope  of  justice  to  a  depen- 


380  PROGRESS. 

dent,  helpless,  liated  race.  Revolutions  never  go  back 
ward.  The  live  force  of  a  human  pulse -beat  can  rive  the 
dead  lumber  of  government  to  pieces.  Chain  the  Helles 
pont,  Mr.  Xerxes-Seward,  before  you  dream  of  balking 
the  Northern  heart  of  its  purpose,  — freedom  to  the  slave  ! 
The  old  sea  never  laughed  at  Persian  chains  more  haugh 
tily  than  we  do  at  Congress  promises. 

I  reverently  thank  God  that  he  has  given  me  to  see 
such  a  day  as  this.  Remember  the  measureless  love  of 
the  North  for  the  Union,  —  its  undoubting  faith  that  dis 
union  is  ruin,  —  and  then  value  as  you  ought  this  last  three 
months.  If  Wilberforce  could  say  on  his  death-bed,  after 
fifty  years'  toil,  "  Thank  God,  I  have  lived  to  see  the  day 
that  England  is  willing  to  give  twenty  million  sterling  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery,"  what  ought  our  gratitude  to  be 
for  such  a  sight  as  this  ?  Twenty  millions  of  people  will 
ing,  would  only  their  leaders  permit,  to  barter  their  gov- 
ment  for  the  hope  of  justice  to  the  negro  !  And  this 
result  has  come  in  defiance  of  the  pulpit,  spite  of  the  half 
omnipotence  of  commerce,  with  all  the  so-called  leaders  of 
public  opinion  against  us,  —  literature,  fashion,  prejudice 
of  race,  and  present  interest.  It  is  the  uprising  of  com 
mon  sense,  the  protest  of  common  conscience,  the  un 
taught,  instinctive  loyalty  of  the  people  to  justice  and 
right. 

But  you  will  tell  me  of  dark  clouds,  mobs  in  every 
Northern  city.  Grant  it,  and  more.  When  Lovejoy  was 
shot  at  Alton,  Illinois,  while  defending  his  press,  and  his 
friends  were  refused  the  use  of  Faneuil  Hall,  William 
Ellery  Channing,  William  Sturgis,  and  George  Bond,  the 
saints  and  merchants  of  Boston,  rallied  to  the  defence  of  free 
speech.  Now  we  hold  meetings  only  when  and  how  the 
Mayor  permits  [hisses  and  great  applause],  yet  no  mer 
chant  prince,  no  pulpit  hero,  rallies  to  our  side.  But  raise 
your  eyes  from  the  disgraced  pavements  of  Boston,  and 


PROGRESS.  381 

look  out  broader.  That  same  soil  which  drank  the  blood 
of  Lovejoy  now  sends  his  brother  to  lead  Congress  in  its 
fiercest  hour ;  that  same  prairie  lifts  his  soul's  son  to  crush 
the  Union  as  he  steps  into  the  Presidential  chair.  Sleep 
in  peace,  martyr  of  Alton,  good  has  come  out  of  Nazareth ! 
The  shot  which  turned  back  our  Star  of  the  West  from  the 
waters  of  Charleston,  and  tolled  the  knell  of  the  Union,  was 
the  rebound  of  the  bullet  that  pierced  your  heart. 

When  Lovejoy  died,  men  used  to  ask,  tauntingly,  what 
good  has  the  antislavery  cause  done  ?  what  changes  has  it 
wrought  ?  As  well  stand  over  the  cradle,  and  ask  what 
use  is  a  baby  ?  He  will  be  a  man  some  time,  —  the  anti- 
slavery  cause  is  now  twenty-one  years  old. 

This  hour  is  bright  from  another  cause.  Since  1800, 
our  government  has  been  only  a  tool  of  the  Slave  Power. 
The  stronghold  of  antislavery  has  been  the  sentiment  of 
the  people.  We  have  always  prophesied  that  our  govern 
ment  would  be  found  too  weak  to  bear  so  radical  an  agita 
tion  as  this  of  slavery.  It  has  proved  so ;  the  government 
is  a  wreck.  But  the  people  have  shown  themselves  able 
to  deal  with  it,  —  able  to  shake  this  sin  from  their  lap  as 
easily  as  the  lion  does  dew-drops  from  his  mane. 

Mark  another  thing.  No  Northern  man  will  allow  you 
to  charge  him  with  a  willingness  to  extend  slavery.  No 
matter  what  his  plan,  he  is  anxious  to  show  you  it  is  not  a 
compromise  !  and  will  not  extend  slavery  one  inch*!  ..Mr- 
Dana  is  eloquent  on^this  point,  JVIr.  Adams  positive,  Mr. 
Seward  cunning,  Thuj4dw  W'eed  indignant.  [Laughter.] 
Virtue  is  not  wholly  discrowned,  while  hypocrisy  is  the 
homage  laid  at  her  feet.  With  such  progress,  why  should 
we  compromise  ? 

Everybody  allows  —  North  and  South  —  that  any  com 
promise  will  only  be  temporary  relief.  The  South  knows 
it  is  a  lie,  meant  to  tide  over  a  shallow  spot.  The  North 
knows  it,  too.  The  startled  North,  in  fact,  now  says 


382  PROGRESS. 

"  Yes,  I  '11  continue  to  serve  you  till  my  hair  be  grown, 
then  I  '11  bring  down  the  very  temple  itself.""  That  id 
what  a  compromise  really  means.  The  progress  is  seen  in 
this.  The  South  always  has  said:  "Yes,  give  me  so  much; 
I  will  not  keep  my  part  of  the  bargain,  but  hold  you  to 
yours,  and  get  more  the  moment  I  can."  Hitherto,  the 
North  has  said  yes,  and  her  courage  consisted  in  skulking. 
Seward  would  swear  to  support  the  Constitution,  but  not 
keep  the  oath.  I  use  his  name  to  illustrate  my  idea.  But 
it  is  always  with  the  extremest  reluctance  I  bring  myself 
to  see  a  spot  on  the  fame  of  that  man,  who,  at  his  own 
cost,  by  severe  toil,  braving  fierce  odium,  saved  our  civili 
zation  from  the  murder  of  the  idiot  Freeman. 

But  you  may  also  ask,  if  compromise  be  even  a  tempo 
rary  relief,  why  not  make  it  ? 

1st.  Because  it  is  wrong. 

2d.  Because  it  is  suicidal.  Secession,  appeased  by  com 
promise,  is  only  emboldened  to  secede  again  to-morrow, 
and  thus  get  larger  concessions.  The  cowardice  that  yields 
to  threats  invites  them. 

3d.  Because  it  delays  emancipation.  To-day,  England, 
horror-struck  that  her  five  million  operatives  who  live  on 
cotton  should  depend  on  States  rushing  into  anarchy,  is 
ransacking  the  world  for  a  supply.  Leave  her  to  toil  under 
that  lash,  and  in  five  years,  South  Carolina  will  be  starved 
into  virtue.  One  thousand  slaves  are  born  each  day. 
Hurry  emancipation  three  years,  and  you  raise  a  million 
human  beings  into  freeborn  men. 

4th.  Compromise  demoralizes  both  parties.  Mark  !  the 
North,  notwithstanding  all  its  progress,  does  not  now  quit 
the  South.  In  the  great  religious  bodies  and  the  state,  it 
is  the  sinners  who  kick  the  virtuous  out  of  the  covenant 
with  death  !  Mr.  Dana,  in  his  recent  speech,  does  not 
secede  because  unwilling  to  commit  the  three  constitu 
tional  sins.  The  South  secedes  from  him  because  he  will 
not  commit  one  more. 


PROGRESS.  383 

5th.  Compromise  risks  insurrection,  the  worst  door  at 
which  freedom  can  enter.  Let  universal  suffrage  have 
free  sway,  and  the  ballot  supersedes  the  bullet.  But  let 
an  arrogant  and  besotted  minority  curb  the  majority  by 
tricks  like  these,  and  when  you  have  compromised  away 
Lincoln,  you  revive  John  Brown.  On  this  point  of  insur 
rection,  let  me  say  a  word. 

Strictly  speaking,  I  repudiate  the  term  "insurrection.'* 
The  slaves  are  not  a  herd  of  vassals.  They  are  a  nation, 
four  millions  strong ;  having  the  same  right  of  revolution 
that  Hungary  and  Florence  have.  I  acknowledge  the 
right  of  two  million  and  a  half  of  white  people  in  the  seven 
seceding  States  to  organize  their  government  as  they 
choose.  Just  as  freely  I  acknowledge  the  right  of  four 
million  of  black  people  to  organize  tJieir  government,  and 
to  vindicate  that  right  by  arms. 

Men  talk  of  the  peace  of  the  South  under  our  present 
government.  It  is  no  real  peace.  With  the  whites,  it  is 
only  that  bastard  peace  whiqh  the  lazy  Roman  loved,  —  ut 
se  apricaret,  —  that  he  might  sun  himself^  It  is  only  safe 
idleness,  sure  breeder  of  mischief.  With  the  slave,  it  is 
only  war  in  disguise.  Under  that  mask  is  hid  a  war 
keener  in  its  pains,  and  deadlier  in  its  effects,  than  any 
open  fight.  As  the  Latin  adage  runs,  —  mars  gravior  sub 
pace  latet,  —  war  bitterer  for  its  disguise. 

Thirty  years  devoted  to  earnest  use  of  moral  means 
show  how  sincere  our  wish  that  this  question  should  have 
a  peaceful  solution.  If  your  idols  —  your  Websters, 
Clays,  Calhouns,  Sewards,  Adamses  —  had  done  their 
duty,  so  it  would  have  been.  Not  ours  the  guilt  of  this 
storm,  or  of  the  future,  however  bloody.  But  I  hesitate 
not  to  say,  that  I  prefer  an  insurrection  which  frees  the 
slave  in  ten  years  to  slavery  for  a  century.  A  slave  I 
pity.  A  rebellious  slave  I  respect.  I  say  now,  as  I  said 
ten  years  ago,  I  do  not  shrink  from  the  toast  with  which 


384  PROGRESS. 

Dr.  Johnson  flavored  his  Oxford  Port,  "  Success  to  the 
first  insurrection  of  the  blacks  in  Jamaica!"  I  do  not 
shrink  from  the  sentiment  of  Southey,  in  a  letter  to 
Duppa:  u  There  are  scenes  of  tremendous  horror  which  I 
could  smile  at  by  Mercy's  side.  An  insurrection  which 
should  make  the  negroes  masters  of  the  West  Indies  is 
one."  I  believe  both  these  sentiments  are  dictated  by 
the  highest  humanity.  I  know  what  anarchy  is.  I  know 
what  civil  war  is.  I  can  imagine  the  scenes  of  blood 
through  which  a  rebellious  slave  population  must  march  to 
their  rights.  They  are  dreadful.  And  yet,  I  do  not 
know,  that,  to  an  enlightened  mind,  a  scene  of  civil  war 
is  any  more  sickening  than  the  thought  of  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  of  slavery.  Take  the  broken  hearts ;  the  be 
reaved  mothers ;  the  infant,  wrung  from  the  hands  of  its 
parents ;  the  husband  and  wife  torn  asunder ;  every  right 
trodden  under  foot ;  the  blighted  hopes,  the  imbruted 
souls,  the  darkened  and  degraded  millions,  sunk  below  the 
level  of  intellectual  life,  melted  in  sensuality,  herded  with 
beasts,  who  have  walked  over  the  burning  marl  of  South 
ern  slavery  to  their  graves ;  and  where  is  the  battle-field, 
however  ghastly,  that  is  not  white,  —  white  as  an  angel's 
wing,  —  compared  with  the  blackness  of  that  darkness 
which  has  brooded  over  the  Carolinas  for  two  hundred 
years  ?  Do  you  love  mercy  ?  Weigh  out  the  fifty  thou 
sand  hearts  that  have  beaten  their  last  pulse  amid  agonies 
of  thought  and  suffering  fancy  faints  to  think  of;  and  the 
fifty  thousand  mothers,  who,  with  sickening  senses,  watch 
for  footsteps  which  are  not  wont  to  tarry  long  in  their  com 
ing,  and  soon  find  themselves  left  to  tread  the  pathway  of 
life  alone ;  add  all  the  horrors  of  cities  sacked  and  lands 
laid  waste,  —  that  is  war;  weigh  it  now  against  some 
trembling  young  girl  sent  to  the  auction-block,  some  man, 
like  that  taken  from  our  court-house  and  carried  back  into 
Georgia;  multiply  this  individual  agony  into  four  mil- 


PROGRESS.  385 

Jons  ;  multiply  that  into  centuries ;  and  that  into  all  the 
relations  of  father  and  child,  husband  and  wife  ;  heap  on 
all  the  deep,  moral  degradation,  both  of  the  oppressor  and 
the  oppressed,  and  tell  me  if  Waterloo  or  Thermopylae 
can  claim  one  tear  from  the  eye  even  of  the  tenderest 
spirit  of  mercy,  compared  with  this  daily  system  of  hell 
amid  the  most  civilized  and  Christian  people  on  the  face 
of  the  earth  !  * 

No,  I  confess  I  am  not  a  non-resistant.  The  reason 
why  I  have  advised  the  slave  to  be  guided  by  a  policy  of 
peace  is  because  he  has  had,  hitherto,  no  chance.  If  he 
had  one,  if  he  had  as  good  a  chance  as  those  who  went  up 
to  Lexington  years  ago,  I  should  call  him  the  basest  rec 
reant  that  ever  deserted  wife  and  child,  if  he  did  not 
vindicate  his  liberty  by  his  own  right  hand. 

Mr.  Richard  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  says,  in  such  a  contest  his 
sympathies  would  be  with  his  own  race.f  Mine  would  be 

*  Since  I  said  this,  ten  years  ago,  I  find  that  Macaulay  makes  the  same 
comparison  between  a  short  civil  war  and  long  despotism,  —  putting  into 
Milton's  mouth  the  following  :  "  For  civil  war,  that  it  is  an  evil  I  dispute 
not.  But  that  it  is  the  greatest  of  evils,  that  I  stoutly  deny.  It  doth  indeed 
appear  to  the  misjudging  to  be  a  worse  calamity  than  bad  government,  be 
cause  its  miseries  are  collected  together  within  a  short  space  and  time,  and 
may  easily,  at  one  view,  be  taken  in  and  perceived.  But  the  misfortunes  of 
nations  ruled  by  tyrants,  being  distributed  over  many  centuries  and  many 
places,  a?  they  are  of  greater  weight  and  number,  so  they  are  of  less  dis- 
play" 

t  The  following  is  the  paragi'aph  in  Mr.  Dana's  address  referred  to  by 
Mr.  Phillips  :  — 

"  An  appeal  to  arms  is  a  war  of  the  races.  They  meet  on  the  equality  of 
the  battle-field,  and  the  victo  "y  goes  to  the  ?trongest ;  ana  I  confess  that, 
w^en  I  consider  what  the  white  race  is,  and  what  the  black  race  is,  what 
Civilization  is,  and  what  the  white  race  is  and  always  has  been,  and  what  the 
black  race  is  and  always  has  been,  —  and  this  doctrine  of  the  races  has  im 
pressed  itself  on  my  mind  much  more  than  before,  from  what  I  have  seen  of 
all  races  during  the  last  year  and  a  half,  —  1  confess  that,  in  a  contest  like 
that,  my  duty  and  my  sympathies  would  go  with  my  own  race.  I  know  it 
is  a  contest  for  freedom,  but  it  is  a  contest  for  life  and  for  freedom  on  both 
25 


386  PROGRESS. 

with  the  right.  "  The  Almighty  has  no  attribute  which 
can  take  sides  with  us  in  such  a  contest,"  says  Jefferson, 
speaking  of  a  struggle  in  which  the  black  race  "  is  to  go 
up,"  and  his  own,  the  white  race,  is  "  to  go  down."  Let 
me  advise  Mr.  Dana  to  learn  Christianity  of  this  infidel, 
and  Justice  of  this  slaveholder.  I  feel  bound  to  add  my 
doubt  whether  a  slave  insurrection  would  be  a  bloody  one. 
In  all  revolutions,  except  the  French,  the  people  have 
always  shown  themselves  merciful.  Witness  Switzerland, 
St.  Domingo,  Hungary,  Italy.  Tyranny  sours  more  than 
suffering.  The  Conservative  hates  the  Abolitionist  more 
than  we  do  him.  The  South  hates  the  North.  The 
master  speaks  ten  bitter  words  of  the  slave,  where  the 
slave  speaks  five  of  the  master.  Refuse,  then,  all  compro 
mise,  —  send  the  Slave  States  out  to  face  the  danger  of 
which  they  are  fully  aware,  —  announce  frankly  that  we 
welcome  the  black  race  to  liberty,  won  in  battle,  as  cor 
dially  as  we  have  done  Kossuth  and  Garibaldi,  and  proba 
bly  there  will  never  be  an  insurrection.  Prudent"  and 
masterly  statesmanship  will  avert  it  by  just  concession. 
Thus  Disunion  is  Peace,  as  well  as  Liberty  and  Justice. 

But  I  was  speaking  of  compromise.  Compromise  de 
grades  us,  and  puts  back  freedom  in  Europe.  If  the 
North  manfully  accepts  the  Potomac  for  her  barrier, 
avows  her  gladness  to  get  rid  of  tyrants,  her  willingness 
and  her  ability  to  stand  alone,  she  can  borrow  as  much 
money  in  Europe  as  before,  and  will  be  more  respected. 
Free  institutions  are  then  proved  breeders  of  men.  If, 
instead  of  this,  the  North  belittles  herself  by  confessing 
her  fears,  her  weakness,  her  preference  for  peace  at  any 

sides,  because  slavery  is  to  end  when  war  begins.  One  race  is  to  go  up,  and 
one  to  go  down.  It  is  a  question  of  extermination,  or  banishment,  or  subju 
gation,  or  all  three.  And  I  have  not  arrived  at  that  degree  of  philanthropy, 
that  I  desire  to  see  the  black  race  controlling  all  that  vast  country,  and  our 
own  white  civilized  race  driven  out,  subjugated,  or  exterminated," 


PROGRESS.  387 

price,  what  capitalist  will  trust  a  rope  of  sand,  —  a  people 
which  the  conspiracy  of  Buchanan's  Cabinet  could  not 
disgust,  nor  the  guns  of  Carolina  arouse  ? 

Will  compromise  eliminate  all  our  Puritan  blood, — 
make  the  census  add  up  against  us,  and  in  favor  of  the 
South,  —  write  a  new  Bible,  —  blot  John  Brown  from  his 
tory,  —  make  Connecticut  suck  its  idle  thumbs  like  a  baby, 
and  South  Carolina  invent  and  save  like  a  Yankee  ?  If  it 
will,  it  will  succeed.  If  it  will  not,  Carolina  don't  want 
it,  any  more  than  Jerrold's  duck  wants  you  to  hold  an 
umbrella  over  him  in  a  hard  shower.  Carolina  wants  sep 
aration, —  wants,  like  the  jealous  son,  her  portion,  and 
must  waste  it  in  riotous  madness  before  she  return  a  re 
pentant  prodigal. 

Why  do  I  think  disunion  gain,  peace,  and  virtue  ? 

The  Union,  even  if  it  be  advantageous  to  all  the  States, 
is  surely  indispensable  only  to  the  South. 

Let  us  rise  to  the  height  of  our  position.  This  is  revo 
lution,  not  rebellion. 

Suppose  we  welcome  disunion,  manfully  avow  our  real 
sentiment,  "  liberty  and  equality,"  and  draw  the  line  at 
the  Potomac.  We  do  not  want  the  Border  States.  Let 
them  go,  be  welcome  to  the  forts,  take  the  Capital  with 
them.  [Applause  and  hisses.]  What  to  us  is  a  hot-house 
city,  empty  streets,  and  useless  marble  ?  Where  Mac- 
gregor  sits  is  the  head  of  the  table.  Active  brains,  free 
lips,  and  cunning  hands  make  empires.  Paper  capitals 
are  vain.  Of  course,  we  must  assume  a  right  to  buy  out 
Maryland  and  Delaware.  Then,  by  running  our  line  at 
the  Potomac,  we  close  the  irrepressible  conflict,  and  have 
homogeneous  institutions".  Then  we  part  friends.  The 
Union  thus  ended,  the  South  no  longer  hates  the  North. 
Cuba  she  cannot  have.  France,  England,  and  ourselves 
forbid.  If  she  spread  over  Central  America,  that  will 
bring  no  cause  of  war  to  a  Northern  confederacy.  We 


388  PROGRESS. 

are  no  filibusters.  Her  nearness  to  us  there  cannot  harm 
us.  Let  Kansas  witness  that  while  Union  fettered  her, 
and  our  national  banner  clung  to  the  flagstaff  heavy 
with  blood,  we  still  made  good  George  Canning's  boast, 
"  Where  that  banner  is  planted,  foreign  dominion  shall  not 
come."  With  a  government  heartily  on  his  side,  and  that 
flag  floating  in  the  blessings  of  twenty  million  of  freemen, 
the  loneliest  settler  in  the  shadow  of  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains  will  sleep  fearless. 

Why,  then,  should  there  not  be  peace  between  two 
such  confederacies  ?  There  must  be.  Let  me  show  you 
why  :  — 

1st.  The  laws  of  trade  will  bind  us  together,  as  they 
now  do  all  other  lands.  This  side  of  the  ocean,  at  least,. 
we  are  not  living  in  feudal  times,  when  princes  make  war 
for  ambition.  We  live  in  days  when  men  of  common 
sense  go  about  their  daily  business,  while  frightened  kings 
are  flying  along  the  highways.  Leave  neighborhood  and 
trade  alone  to  work  their  usual  results,  and  we  shall  be  at 
peace.  Observe,  only  Northerners  are  lynched  at  the 
South  now.  Spaniards,  French,  Scotch  are  safe.  When 
English  Captain  Vaughan  is  tarred  and  feathered,  the 
Mayor  offers  a  reward,  and  the  grand  jury  indict.  After 
a  fair,  sensible  disunion,  such  as  I  have  described,  a  Bos 
ton  man  will  be  as  well  off  as  Captain  Vaughan.  Fair 
treaties  are  better  security  than  sham  constitutions. 

At  any  rate,  disunion  could  not  make  the  two  sections 
any  more  at  war  than  they  are  now.  Any  change  in  this 
respect  would  be  an  improvement.  If  the  North  and 
Mexico  had  touched  boundaries,  would  they  ever  have 
quarrelled  ?  Nothing  but  Southern  filibusterism,  which 
can  never  point  North,  ever  embroiled  us  with  Mexico. 
To  us  in  future  the  South  will  be  another  Mexico ;  we 
shall  not  wish  to  attack  her  ;  she  will  be  too  weak,  too 
intent  on  her  own  broils,  to  attack  us. 


PROGRESS.  389 

Even  if  the  Border  States  do  not  secede,  let  us,  for  the 
slave's  sake,  welcome  the  schism  between  them  and  the 
Gulf  States,  which  that  very  difference  of  conduct  will  be 
sure  to  cause.  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand.  Only  twenty-three  out  of  every  hundred  inhab 
itants  are  slaves  in  the  Border  States,  —  twenty -three 
slaves  to  seventy-seven  freemen.  A  worn-out  soil,  fear  of 
loss  by  fugitives,  dread  of  danger  to  a  hated  institution, 
thus  weak  in  proportion  to  Northern  enemies,  will  urge 
slaveholders  to  push  their  slaves  southward.  Another 
census  may  find  the  Border  States  with  only  ten  or  fifteen 
slaves  out  of  one  hundred  inhabitants,  —  ten  slaves  to 
ninety  freemen.  Reduced  to  such  compass,  slavery  is 
manageable  ;  we  shall  soon  see  plans  of  emancipation, 
compensation,  and  freedom.  On  the  contrary,  the  Gulf 
States  now  have  forty-six  slaves  in  every  hundred  inhabi 
tants,  —  forty-six  slaves  to  fifty-four  freemen.  Strength 
ened  by  this  tendency  of  the  slave  population  southward, 
and  the  opening  of  the  slave-trade,,  we  may  soon  see  the 
black  race  a  majority,  and  either  as  a  nation  of  mixed 
races,  or  as  black  republics,  the  Gulf  States  will  gravitate 
back  to  us  free. 

The  South  cannot  make  war  on  any  one.  Suppose  the 
fifteen  States  hang  together  a  year,  —  which  is  almost  an 
impossibility,  — 

1st.  They  have  given  bonds  in  two  thousand  millions  of 
dollars  —  the  value  of  their  slaves  —  to  keep  the  peace. 

2d.  They  will  have  enough  to  do  to  attend  to  the  irre 
pressible  conflict  at  home.  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Missouri, 
will  be  their  Massachusetts  ;  Winter  Davis,  Blair,  and 
Cassius  Clay,  their  Seward  and  Garrison. 

3d.  The  Gulf  States  will  monopolize  all  the  offices.  A 
man  must  have  Gulf  principles  to  belong  to  a  healthy 
party.  Under  such  a  lead,  disfranchised  Virginia,  in  op 
position,  will  not  have  much  heart  to  attack  Pennsylvania. 


390  PROGRESS. 

4th.  The  census  shows  that  the  Border  States  are  push 
ing  their  slaves  South.  Fear  of  their  free  Northern  neigh 
bors  will  quicken  the  process,  and  so  widen  the  breach 
between  Gulf  and  Border  States  by  making  one  constantly 
more  and  the  other  less  Slave  States.  Free  trade  in  sugar 
bankrupts  Louisiana.  Free  trade  in  men  bankrupts  Vir 
ginia.  Free  trade  generally  lets  two  thirds  of  the  direct 
taxation  rest  on  the  numerous,  richer,  and  more  comfort 
able  whites  of  the  Border  States ;  hence  further  conflict. 
Such  a  despotism,  with  every  third  man  black  and  a  foe, 
will  make  no  wars. 

Why  should  it  attack  us  ?  We  are  not  a  cannon  thun 
dering  at  its  gates.  We  are  not  an  avalanche  overhang 
ing  its  sunny  vales.  Our  influence,  that  of  freedom,  is 
only  the  air,  penetrating  everywhere  ;  like  heat,  permeat 
ing  all  space.  The  South  cannot  stand  isolated  on  a  glass 
cricket.  The  sun  will  heat  her,  and  electricity  convulse. 
She  must  outwit  ideas  before  she  can  get  rid  of  them.  A 
fevered  child  in  July  might  as  well  strike  at  the  sun,  as 
the  South  attack  us  for  that,  the  only  annoyance  we  can 
give  her,  —  the  sight  and  influence  of  our  nobler  civiliza 
tion. 

Disunion  is  gain.  I  venture  the  assertion,  in  the  face 
of  State  Street,  that  of  any  five  Northern  men  engaged 
in  Southern  trade,  exclusively,  four  will  end  in  bankrupt 
cy.  If  disunion  sifts  such  commerce,  the  North  will  lose 
nothing. 

I  venture  the  assertion,  that  seven  at  least  of  the  South 
ern  States  receive  from  the  government  more  than  they 
contribute  to  it.  So  far,  their  place  will  be  more  profitable 
than  their  company. 

The  whole  matter  of  the  Southern  trade  has  been  grossly 
exaggerated,  as  well  as  the  importance  of  the  Mississippi 
River.  Freedom  makes  her  own  rivers  of  iron.  Facts 
show  that  for  one  dollar  the  West  sends  or  brings  by  the 


PROGRESS.  391 

river,  she  sends  and  brings  four  to  and  from  the  East  by 
wagon  and  rail. 

If,  then,  Mississippi  and  Louisiana  bar  the  river  with 
forts,  they  will  graciously  be  allowed  to  pay  for  them, 
while  Northern  railroads  grow  rich  carrying  behind  steam 
that  portion  of  wheat,  bacon,  silk,  or  tea,  which  would 
otherwise  float  lazily  up  and  down  that  yellow  stream. 

The  Cincinnati  Press, .which  has  treated  the  subject  with 
rare  ability,  asserts  that,  excepting  provisions  which  the 
South  must,  in  any  event,  buy  of  the  West,  the  trade  of 
Cincinnati  with  Southern  Indiana  alone  is  thrice  her  trade 
with  the  whole  South.  As  our  benevolent  societies  get 
about  one  dollar  in  seven  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line,  so  our  traders  sell  there  only  about  one  dollar  in  five. 
Such  trade,  if  cut  off,  would  ruin  nobody.  In  fact,  the 
South  buys  little  of  us,  and  pays  only  for  about  half  she 
buys.  [Laughter  and  hisses.] 

Now  we  build  Southern  roads,  pay  Southern  patrol, 
carry  Southern  letters,  support,  out  of  the  nation's  treas 
ures,  an  army  of  Southern  office-holders,  waste  more 
money  at  Norfolk  in  building  ships  which  will  not  float,  than 
is  spent  in  protecting  the  five  Great  Lakes,  which  bear  up 
millions  of  commerce.  These  vast  pensions  come  back  to 
us  in  shape  of  Southern  traders,  paying  on  the  average 
one  half  their  debts.  Dissolve  the  Union,  and  we  shall 
save  this  outgo,  and  probably  not  sell  without  a  prospect 
of  being  paid.  While  the  laws  of  trade  guarantee  that 
even  if  there  be  two  nations,  we  shall  have  their  carrying- 
trade  and  manufacture  for  them  just  so  long  as  we  carry 
and  manufacture  cheaper  than  other  men. 

Southern  trade  is  a  lottery,  to  which  the  Union  gives  all 
the  prizes.  Put  it  on  a  sound  basis  by  disunion,  and  the 
North  gains.  If  *ve  part  without  anger,  the  South  buys, 
as  every  one  doe*,  of  the  cheapest  seller.  We  get  her 
honest  business,  without  being  called  to  fill  up  the  gap  of 


392  PROGRESS. 

bankruptcy  which  the  wasteful  system  of  slave-labor  must 
occasion.  In  this  generation,  no  Slave  State  in  the  Union 
has  made  the  year's  ends  meet.  In  counting  the  wealth 
of  the  Union,  such  States  are  a  minus  quantity.  Should 
the  Gulf  States,  however,  return,  I  have  no  doubt  the 
United  States  treasury  will  be  called  on  to  pay  all  these 
secession  debts. 

Disunion  is  honor.  I  will  not -point  to  the  equivocating 
hypocrisy  of  all  our  Northern  leaders.  I  will  not  count 
up  all  the  bankrupt  statesmen,  —  blighted  names,  —  skele 
tons  marking  the  sad  path  of  the  caravan  over  our  desert 
of  seventy  years,  —  they  are  too  familiar.  As  years  roll 
on,  history  metes  out  justice.  But  take  the  last  instance, 
—  take  Mr.  Richard  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  as  example,  a  name 
historic  for  generations,  a  scholar  of  world-wide  fame. 
He  finds  in  the  Constitution  the  duty  of  returning  fugitive 
slaves,  all  alike,  "  the  old  and  the  ignorant,  the  young  and 
the  beautiful,"  to  be  surrendered  to  the  master,  whether 
he  be  man  or  brute.  Mr.  Dana  avows  his  full  readiness 
to  perform  this  legal  duty.  All  honor  at  least  to  the 
shameless  effrontery  with  which  he  avows  his  willingness. 
Most  of  our  public  men,  like  the  English  Tories  of  1689, 
are  "  ashamed  to  name  what  they  are  not  ashamed  to  do." 
He  paints  the  hell  of  slavery  in  words  that  make  the  blood 
cold,  and  then  boasts,  this  Massachusetts  scholar,  —  gen 
tleman,  his  friends  would  call  him,  —  boasts  that  no  man 
can  charge  him  with  having  ever  said  one  word  against 
the  surrender  of  fugitive  slaves  !  Counsel  in  all  the  Bos 
ton  slave- cases,  he  "  never  suffered  himself  to  utter  one 
word  which  any  poor  fugitive  negro,  or  any  friend  of  his, 
could  construe  into  an  assertion  that  a  fugitive  slave  should 
not  be  restored  "  ! 

He  unblushingly  claims  merit  for  himself  and  Massa 
chusetts,  —  I  doubt  if,  in  the  scornful  South,  he  will  have 
u  his  claim  allowed,"  —  that  he  and  Massachusetts  hive 


PROGRESS.  393 

constantly  executed  laws  which  "  offended  their  sense  of 
honor,  and  ran  counter  to  their  moral  sentiments,"  which 
he  considers  a  "painful  duty."  To  be  sure,  Mr.  Dana 
has  discovered,  in  his  wide  travels  and  extensive  voyages,  a 
u  peculiar  "  class  of  people,  narrow-minded,  very  little  read 
in  Greek,  who  think,  poor  simpletons,  that  this  slave-hunt 
ing  is  a  sin.  But  then,  Aristotle  did  not  look  at  things  in 
this  light.  He  took  broader  views,  and  proves  conclusively 
that  three  virtues  and  one  sin  exactly  make  a  saint,  and 
Mr.  Dana  is  too  good  a  churchman  to  dispute  with  Aris 
totle.  He  sees  no  reason  why,  notwithstanding  this  clause, 
as  to  forcing  our  fellow-men  back  into  hell,  "  a  conscien 
tious  man  "  should  not  swear  to  obey  the  Constitution,  and 
actually  obey  it.  Now  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Joel  Parker, 
who  both  believe  in  the  fugitive-slave  clause,  and  willingly 
swear  to  enforce  it,  have  each  given  public  notice  they  will 
not  enforce  it.  Mr.  Dana  will  swear,  and  perform  too. 
They  will  swear,  but  not  perform.  Their  guilt  is  perjury ; 
his  is  man-stealing.  On  the  whole,  I  should  rather  be 
Seward  than  Dana ;  for  perjury  is  the  more  gentlemanly 
vice,  to  my  thinking.  Perjury  only  filches  your  neigh 
bor's  rights.  Man-stealing  takes  rights  and  neighbor  too. 
After  all  this,  Mr.  Dana  objects  to  the  Crittenden  com 
promise.  Something  short  of  that  he  can  allow,  because 
he  does  not  call  these  other  offers,  Adams's  and  such  like, 
"  compromises  "  !  It  seems  he  objects  more  to  the  word 
than  the  thing.  But  the  Crittenden  proposal  he  is  set 
against,  for  a  reason  which  may  strike  you  singular  in  a 
man  willing  to  return  slaves ;  but  then  we  are  bundles  of 
inconsistencies,  all  of  us.  But  this  slave-hunter  cannot 
abide  Crittenden,  because,  listen  !  because  he  thinks  "  an 
investment  in  dishonor  is  a  bad  investment !  An  invest 
ment  in  infidelity  to  the  principles  of  liberty  is  a  bad  in 
vestment  !  "  Hunt  slaves?  Yes,  it  is  a  duty.  Give  some 
territory  to  slavery,  and  peril  the  Republican  party  ? 


394  PROGRESS. 

Never,  it  is  a  "  bad  investment "  !  De  Quincey  says  : 
"  If  once  a  man  indulges  in  murder,  very  soon  he  comes 
to  think  little  of  robbing ;  from  robbing  he  comes  next  to 
drinking,  and  from  that  to  ill  manners  and  procrastination. 
Once  enter  this  downward  path,  and  you  know  not  where 
you  '11  stop."  Mr.  Dana  has,  however,  taken  warning, 
and  stops  at  man-stealing. 

Some  of  you  will  call  this  personality.  I  will  tell  you 
some  time,  when  the  hour  serves,  why  I  use  personality. 
Enough  now  to  remind  you  his  clients  are  wealth,  culture, 
power,  and  white  blood.  Mine  are  four  million  of  human 
beings,  standing  dumb  suppliants  on  the  threshold  of 
Christianity  and  civilization,  and  hundreds  of  fugitives 
trembling  at  every  motion  of  the  door-latch.  Whoever 
perils  their  safety,  or  holds  back  the  day  of  their  redemp 
tion  by  ingenious  sophistry,  base  word,  or  base  act,  shall 
always  find  in  me  a  critic.  Let  no  man  call  me  harsh  ;  I 
only  repeat  with  emphasis  words  such  men  are  not  ashamed 
to  speak.  Southern  Legrees  can  plead,  if  not  an  excuse, 
yet  some  extenuation.  But  when  a  Massachusetts  Repub 
lican,  a  Massachusetts  lawyer,  a  Massachusetts  scholar, 
avows  such  sentiments,  he  puts  himself  below  the  Le 
grees.  Blame  not  this  plainness  of  speech.  I  have  a 
hundred  friends,  as  brave  souls  as  God  ever  made,  whose 
hearths  are  not  as  safe  after  honored  men  make  such 
speeches. 

Faneuil  Hall,  too,  kneels  patient  for  its  burden,  and  by 
its  President  that  meeting  says  to  the  South,  —  Only  name 
your  terms,  that  is  all  we  will  trouble  you  to  do.  Like 
Luther's  priest,  who,  when  Catholics  told  him  to  pray  one 
way  and  Protestants  another,  ended  by  repeating  the  al 
phabet,  and  begging  God  to  frame  a  prayer  agreeable  to 
himself,  so  our  Boston  orator  offers  the  South  carte  blanche, 
the  whole  bundle  of  compromises,  —  Will  she  only  conde 
scend  to  indicate  her  preference  ? 


PROGRESS.  395 

Mr.  Dana  is  a  man  above  the  temptations  of  politics. 
The  President  of  the  Faneuil  Hall  meeting  has  no  politi 
cal  aspirations,  an  independent  merchant.  Such  speeches 
show  how  wide  the  gangrene  of  the  Union  spreads.  Mr. 
Dana's  speech  was  made,  he  says,  in  the  shadow  of  Bun 
ker's  Hill,  in  sight  of  the  spot  where  Washington  first 
drew  his  sword.  The  other  speech  was  borne  to  the  roof 
of  Faneuil  Hall  by  the  plaudits  of  a  thousand  merchants. 
Surely,  such  were  not  the  messages  Cambridge  and  our 
old  Hall  used  to  exchange  !  Can  you  not  hear  Warren 
and  Otis  crying  to  their  recreant  representatives :  "  Sons, 
scorn  to  be  slaves !  Believe,  for  our  sakes,  we  did  not 
fight  for  such  a  government.  Trample  it  under  foot.  You 
cannot  be  poorer  than  we  were.  It  cannot  cost  you  more 
than  our  seven  years  of  war.  Do  it,  if  only  to  show  that 
we  have  not  lived  in  vain  "  ? 


^^^% 

'OF  THE 

fo'mVEESITY; 


UNDER  THE  FLAG.* 


"  Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord  :  Ye  have  not  hearkened  unto  me  in  pro 
claiming  liberty  every  one  to  his  brother,  and  every  man  to  his  neighbor  : 
behold,  I  proclaim  a  liberty  for  you,  saith  the  Lord,  to  the  sword,  to  the  pes 
tilence,  and  to  the  famine." — JER.  xxxiv.  17. 

MANY  times  this  winter,  here  and  elsewhere,  I  have 
counselled  peace,  —  urged,  as  well  as  I  knew  how, 
the  expediency  of  acknowledging  a  Southern  Confederacy, 
and  the  peaceful  separation  of  these  thirty-four  States. 
One  of  the  journals  announces  to  you  that  I  come  here 
this  morning  to  retract  those  opinions.  No,  not  one  of 
them  !  [Applause.]  I  need  them  all,  —  every  word  I 
have  spoken  this  winter,  —  every  act  of  twenty-five  years 
of  my  life,  to  make  the  welcome  I  give  this  war  hearty 
and  hot.  Civil  war  is  a  momentous  evil.  It  needs  the 
soundest,  most  solemn  justification.  I  rejoice  before  God 
to-day  for  every  word  that  I  have  spoken  counselling  peace  ; 
but  I  rejoice  also  with  an  especially  profound  gratitude, 
that  now,  the  first  time  in  my  antislavery  life,  I  speak 
under  the  stars  and  stripes,  and  welcome  the  tread  of 
Massachusetts  men  marshalled  for  war.  [Enthusiastic 
cheering.]  No  matter  what  the  past  has  been  or  said  ; 
to-day  the  slave  asks  God  for  a  sight  of  this  banner,  and 
counts  it  the  pledge  of  his  redemption.  [Applause.] 
Hitherto  it  may  have  meant  what  you  thought,  or  what  I 

*  A  Discourse  delivered  in  the  Music  Hall,  Boston,  April  21,  1861,  before 
the  Twenty-eighth  Congregational  Society,  the  platform  profusely  decorated 
with  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  . 


UNDER    THE   FLAG.  397 

did  ;  to-day  it  represents  sovereignty  and  justice.  [Re 
newed  applause.]  The  only  mistake  that  I  have  made, 
was  in  supposing  Massachusetts  wholly  choked  with  cotton- 
dust  and  cankered  with  gold.  [Loud  cheering.]  The 
South  thought  her  patience  and  generous  willingness  for 
peace  were  cowardice  ;  to-day  shows  the  mistake.  She 
has  been  sleeping  on  her  arms  since  '83,  and  the  first 
cannon-shot  brings  her  to  her  feet  with  the  war-cry  of  the 
Revolution  on  her  lips.  [Loud  cheers.]  Any  man  who 
loves  either  liberty  or  manhood  must  rejoice  at  such  an 
hour.  [Applause.] 

Let  me  tell  you  the  path  by  which  I  at  least  have  trod 
my  way  up  to  this  conclusion.  I  do  not  acknowledge  the 
motto,  in  its  full  significance,  "  Our  country,  right  or 
wrong."  If  you  let  it  trespass  on  the  domain  of  morals, 
it  is  knavish.  But  there  is  a  full,  broad  sphere  for  loyal 
ty  ;  and  no  war-cry  ever  stirred  a  generous  people  that 
had  not  in  it  much  of  truth  and  right.  It  is  sublime,  this 
rally  of  a  great  people  to  the  defence  of  what  they  think 
their  national  honor !  A  "  noble  and  puissant  nation 
rousing  herself  like  a  strong  man  from  sleep,  and  shaking 
her  invincible  locks."  Just  now,  we  saw  her  "  reposing, 
peaceful  and  motionless  ;  but  at  the  call  of  patriotism,  she 
ruffles,  as  it  were,  her  swelling  plumage,  collects  her  scat 
tered  elements  of  strength,  and  awakens  her  dormant 
thunders." 

But  how  do  we  justify  this  last  appeal  to  the  God  of 
battles  ?  Let  me  tell  you  how  I  do.  I  have  always  be 
lieved  in  the  sincerity  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  You  have 
heard  me  express  my  confidence  in  it  every  time  I  have 
spoken  from  this  desk.  I  only  doubted  sometimes  whether 
he  were  really  the  head  of  the  government.  To-day  he 
is  at  any  rate  Commander-in-chief. 

The  delay  in  the  action  of  government  has  doubtless 
been  necessity,  but  policy  also.  Traitors  within  and  with- 


398  UNDER   THE  FLAG. 

out  made  it  hesitate  to  move  till  it  had  tried  the  machine 
of  government  just  given  it.  But  delay  was  wise,  as  it 
matured  a  public  opinion  definite,  decisive,  and  ready  to 
keep  step  to  the  music  of  the  government  march.  The 
very  postponement  of  another  session  of  Congress  till  July 
4th  plainly  invites  discussion,  —  evidently  contemplates 
the  ripening  of  public  opinion  in  the  interval.  Fairly  to 
examine  public  affairs,  and  prepare  a  community  wise  to 
co-operate  with  the  government,  is  the  duty  of  every 
pulpit  and  every  press. 

Plain  words,  therefore,  now,  before  the  nation  goes  mad 
with  excitement,  is  every  man's  duty.  Every  public 
meeting  in  Athens  was  opened  with  a  curse  on  any  one 
who  should  not  speak  what  he  really  thought.  "  I  have 
never  defiled  my  conscience  from  fear  or  favor  to  my 
superiors,"  was  part  of  the  oath  every  Egyptian  soul  was 
supposed  to  utter  in  the  Judgment-Hall  of  Osiris,  before 
admission  to  heaven.  Let  us  show  to-day  a  Christian 
spirit  as  sincere  and  fearless.  No  mobs  in  this  hour  of 
victory,  to  silence  those  whom  events  have  not  converted. 
We  are  strong  enough  to  tolerate  dissent.  That  flag 
which  floats  over  press  or  mansion  at  the  bidding  of  a 
mob,  disgraces  both  victor  and  victim. 

All  winter  long,  I  have  acted  with  that  party  which 
cried  for  peace.  The  antislavery  enterprise  to  which  I 
belong  started  with  peace  written  on  its  banner.  We 
imagined  that  the  age  of  bullets  was  over ;  .that  the  age 
of  ideas  had  come  ;  that  thirty  millions  of  people  were 
able  to  take  a  great  question,  and  decide  it  by  the  conflict 
of  opinions ;  that,  without  letting  the  ship  of  state  foun 
der,  we  could  lift  four  millions  of  men"  into  Liberty  and 
Justice.  We  thought  that  if  your  statesmen  woulct  throw 
away  personal  ambition  and  party  watchwords,  and  devote' 
themselves  to  the  great  issue,  this  might  be  accomplished. 
To  a  certain  extent  it  has  been.  The  North  has  answered 


UNDER   THE   FLAG.  399 

to  the  call.  Year  after  year,  event  by  event,  has  indi 
cated  the  rising  education  of  the  people,  —  the  readiness 
for  a  higher  moral  life,  the  calm,  self-poised  confidence 
in  our  own  convictions  that  patiently  waits  —  like  master 
for  a  pupil  —  for  a  neighbor's  conversion.  The  North 
has  responded  to  the  call  of  that  peaceful,  moral,  intel 
lectual  agitation  which  the  antislavery  idea  has  initiated. 
Our  mistake,  if  any,  has  been  that  we  counted  too  much 
on  the  intelligence  of  the  masses,  on  the  honesty  and 
wisdom  of  statesmen  as  a  class.  Perhaps  we  did  not  give 
weight  enough  to  the  fact  we  saw,  that  this  nation  is  made 
up  of  different  ages ;  not  homogeneous,  but  a  mixed  mass 
of  different  centuries.  The  North  thinks,  —  can  appreci 
ate  argument,  —  is  the  nineteenth  century,  —  hardly  any 
struggle  left  in  it  but  that  between  the^  working  class  and 
the  money-kings.N  The  South  dreams,  —  it  is  the  thir 
teenth  and  fourteenth  century,  —  baron  and  serf,  —  noble 
and  slave.  Jack  Cade  and  Wat  Tyler  loom  over  its 
horizon,  and  the  serf,  rising,  calls  for  another  Thierry  to 
record  his  struggle.  There  the  fagot  still  burns  which  the 
Doctors  of  the  Sorbonne  called,  ages  ago,  "  the  best  light 
to  guide  the  erring."  There  men  are  tortured  for  opin 
ions,  the  only  punishment  the  Jesuits  were  willing  their 
pupils  should  look  on.  This  is,  perhaps,  too  flattering  a 
picture  of  the  South.  Better  call  her,  as  Sumner  does, 
"  the  Barbarous  States."  Our  struggle,  therefore,  is  be 
tween  barbarism  and  civilization.  Such  can  only  be  set 
tled  by  arms.  [Prolonged  cheering.]  The  government 
has  waited  until  its  best  friends  almost  suspected  its 
courage  or  its  integrity ;  but  the  cannon  shot  against  Fort 
Sumter  has  opened  the  only  door  out  of  this  hour.  There 
were  but  two.  One  was  compromise ;  the  other  was 
battle.  The  integrity  of  the  North  closed  the  first ;  the 
generous  forbearance  of  nineteen  States  closed  the  other. 
The  South  opened  this  with  cannon-shot,  and  Lincoln 


400  UNDER   THE  FLAG. 

shows  himself  at  the  door.  [Prolonged  and  enthusiastic 
cheering.]  The  war,  then,  is  not  aggressive,  but  in  self- 
defence,  and  Washington  has  become  the  Thermopylsejpf 
Liberty  and  Justice.  [Applause.]  Rather  than  surren 
der"  that  Capital,  cover  every  square  foot  of  it  with  a  living 
body  [loud  cheers]  ;  crowd  it  with  a  million  of  men,  and 
empty  every  bank  vault  at  the  North  to  pay  the  cost. 
[Renewed  cheering.]  Teach. the  world  once  for  all,  that 
North  America  belongs  to  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  and 
under  them  no  man  shall  wear  a  chain.  [Enthusiastic 
cheering.]  In  the  whole  of  this  conflict,  I  have  looked 
only  at  Liberty,  —  only  at  the  slave.  Perry  entered  the 
battle  of  the  Lakes  with  "DON'T  GIVE  UP  THE  SHIP!" 
floating  from  the  masthead  of  the  Lawrence.  When 
with  his  fighting  flag  he  left  her  crippled,  heading  north, 
and,  mounting  the  deck  of  the  Niagara,  turned  her  bows 
due  west,  he  did  all  for  one  and  the  same  purpose,  —  to 
rake  the  decks  of  the  foe.  Steer  north  or  west,  acknowl 
edge  secession  or  cannonade  it,  I  care  not  which ;  but 
"  Proclaim  liberty  throughout  all  the  land  unto  all  the 
inhabitants  thereof."  £Loud  cheers.] 

I  said,  civil  war  needs  momentous  and  solemn  justifica 
tion.  Europe,  the  world,  may  claim  of  us,  tnat,  before  we 
blot  the  nineteenth  century  by  an  appeal  to  arms,  we 
shall  exhaust  every  concession,  try  every  means  to  keep 
the  peace  ;  otherwise,  an  appeal  to  the  God  of  battles  is 
an  insult  to  the  civilization  of  our  age  ;  it  is  a  confession 
that  our  culture  and  our  religion  are  superficial,  if  not  a 
failure.  I  think  that  the  history  of  the  nation  and  of  the 
government  both  is  an  ample  justification  to  our  own 
times  and  to  history  for  this  appeal  to  arms.  I  think  the 
South  is  all  wrong,  and  the  administration  is  all  right. 
[Prolonged  cheering.]  Let  me  tell  you  why.  For  thirty 
years  the  North  has  exhausted  conciliation  and  compro 
mise.  They  have  tried  every  expedient,  they  have  relin- 


UNDER   THE   FLAG.  401 

quished  every  right,  they  have  sacrificed  every  interest, 
they  have  smothered  keen  sensibility  to  national  honor, 
and  Northern  weight  and  supremacy  in  the  Union ;  have 
forgotten  they  were  the  majority  in  numbers  and  in 
wealth,  in  education  and  strength ;  have  left  the  helm  of 
government  and  the  dictation  of  policy  to  the  Southern 
States.  For  all  this,  the  conflict  waxed  closer  and  hotter. 
The  administration  which  preceded  this  was  full  of  trai 
tors  and  thieves.  It  allowed  the  arms,  ships,  money, 
military  stores  of  the  North  to  be  stolen  with  impunity. 
Mr.  Lincoln  took  office,  robbed  of  all  the  means  to  defend 
the  Constitutional  rights  of  the  government.  He  offered 
to  withdraw  from  the  walls  of  Sumter  everything  but  the 
flag.  He  allowed  secession  to  surround  it  with  the  strong 
est  forts  which  military  science  could  build.  The  North 
offered  to  meet  in  convention  her  sister  States,  and  ar 
range  the  terms  of  peaceful  separation.  Strength  and  right 
yielded  everything,  —  they  folded  their  hands,  waited 
the  returning  reason  of  the  mad  insurgents.  Week  after 
week  elapsed,  month  after  month  went  by,  waiting  for  the 
sober  second-thought  of  two  millions  and  a  half  of  people. 
The  world  saw  the  sublime  sight  of  nineteen  millions  of 
wealthy,  powerful,  united  citizens,  allowing  their  flag  to  be 
insulted,  their  rights  assailed,  their  sovereignty  defied  and 
broken  in  pieces,  and  yet  waiting,  with  patient,  brotherly, 
magnanimous  kindness,  until  insurrection,  having  spent  its 
fury,  should  reach  out  its  hand  for  a  peaceful  arrangement. 
Men  began  to  call  it  cowardice,  on  the  one  hand ;  and  we, 
who  watched  closely  the  crisis,  feared  that  this  effort  to 
be  magnanimous  would  demoralize  the  conscience  and  the 
courage  of  the  North.  We  were  afraid  that,  as  the  hour 
went  by,  the  virtue  of  the  people,  white-heat  as  it  stood 
on  the  fourth  day  of  March,  would  be  cooled  by  the  temp 
tations,  by  the  suspense,  by  the  want  and  suffering  which  it 
was  feared  would  stalk  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  valley  of 

26 


402  UNDER   THE   FLAG. 

the  Mississippi.  We  were  afraid  the  government  would 
wait  too  long,  and  find  at  last,  that,  instead  of  a  united 
people,  they  were  deserted,  and  left  alone  to  meet  the  foe. 

All  this  time,  the  South  knew,  recognized,  by  her  own 
knowledge  of  Constitutional  questions,  that  the  govern 
ment  could  not  advance  one  inch  towards  acknowledging 
secession  ;  that  when  Abraham  Lincoln  swore  to  support 
the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States,  he  was 
bound  to  die  under  the  flag  on  Fort  Sumter,  if  necessary. 
[Loud  applause.]  They  knew,  therefore,  that  the  call  on 
the  administration  to  acknowledge  the  Commissioners  of 
the  Confederacy  was  a  delusion  and  a  swindle.  I  know 
the  whole  argument  for  secession.  Up  to  a  certain  ex 
tent,  I  accede  to  it.  But  no  administration  that  is  not 
traitor  can  acknowledge  secession  until  we  are  hopelessly 
beaten  in  fair  fight.  [Cheers.]  The  right  of  a  State  to 
secede,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  —  it  is 
an  absurdity ;  and  Abraham  Lincoln  knows  nothing,  has  a 
right  to  know  nothing,  but  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  [Loud  cheers.]  The  right  of  a  State  to  secede, 
as  a  revolutionary  right,  is  undeniable ;  but  it  is  the  nation 
which  is  to  recognize  that ;  and  the  nation  offered,  at  the 
suggestion  of  Kentucky,  to  meet  the  question  in  full  con 
vention.  The  offer  was  declined.  The  government  and 
the  nation,  therefore,  are  all  right.  [Applause.]  They 
are  right  on  constitutional  law ;  they  are  right  on  the 
principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  [Cheers.] 

Let  me  explain  this  more  fully,  for  this  reason  ;  because 
—  and  I  thank  God  for  it,  every  American  should  be 
proud  of  it  —  you  cannot  maintain  a  war  in  the  United 
States  of  America  against  a  constitutional  or  a  revolution 
ary  right.  The  people  of  these  States  have  too  large  brains 
and  too  many  ideas  to  fight  blindly,  —  to  lock  horns  like  a 
couple  of  beasts  in  the  sight  of  the  world.  [Applause.] 
Cannon  think  in  this  nineteenth  century ;  and  you  must 


UNDER  THE  FLAG.  403 

put  the  North  in  the  right,  —  wholly,  undeniably,  in 
side  of  the  Constitution  and  out  of  it,  —  before  you  can 
justify  her  in  the  face  of  the  world ;  before  you  can  pour 
Massachusetts  like  an  avalanche  through  the  streets  of 
Baltimore,  [great  cheering,]  and  carry  Lexington  on  the 
19th  of  April  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  [Re 
newed  cheering.]  Let  us  take  an  honest  pride  in  the 
fact  that  our  Sixth  Regiment  made  a  way  for  itself 
through  Baltimore,  and  were  the  first  to  reach  the  threat 
ened  Capital.  In  this  war  Massachusetts  has  a  right  to  be 
the  first  in  the  field. 

I  said  I  knew  the  whole  argument  for  secession.  Very 
briefly  let  me  state  the  points.  No  government  provides 
for  its  own  death;  therefore  there  canT)e~no  constitutional 
right  to  secede.  But  there  is  a  revolutionary  right.  The 
Declaration  of  Independence  establishes,  what  the  heart 
of  every  American  acknowledges,  that  the  people  —  mark 
you,  THE  PEOPLE!  —  have  always  an  inherent,  paramount, 
inalienable  right  to  change  their  governments,  whenever 
they  think  —  whenever  they  think  —  that  it  will  minister 
to  their  happiness.  That  is  a  revolutionary  right.  Now, 
How  did  South  Carolina  and  Massachusetts  come  into  the 
Union  ?  They  came  into  it  by  a  convention  representing 
the  people."  South  Carolina  alleges  that  she  has  gone  out 
by  convention.  So  far,  right.  She  says  that  when  the 
people  take  the  State  rightfully  out  of  the  Union,  the  right 
to  forts  and  national  property  goes  with  it.  Granted.  She 
says,  also,  that  it  is  no  matter  that  we  bought  Louisiana  of 
France,  and  Florida  of  Spain.  No  bargain  made,  no  money 
paid,  betwixt  us  and  France  or  Spain,  could  rob  Florida  or 
Louisiana  of  her  right  to  remodel  her  government  when 
ever  the  people  found  it  would  be  for  their  happiness.  So 
far,  right.  THE  PEOPLE,  —  mark  you!  South  Carolina 
presents  herself  to  the  administration  at  Washington,  and 
says,  "  There  is  a  vote  of  my  convention,  that  I  go  out  of 


404  UNDER   THE   FLAG. 

the  Union."  "  I  cannot  see  you,"  says  Abraham  Lincoln. 
[Loud  cheers.]  "  As  President,  I  have  no  eyes  but  con 
stitutional  eyes;  I  cannot  see  you."  [Renewed  cheers.] 
He  could  only  say,  like  Speaker  Lenthal  before  Charles  the 
First,  "  I  have  neither  eyes  to  see  nor  tongue  to  speak  but 
as  the  Constitution  is  pleased  to  direct  me,  whose  servant  I 
am."  He  was  right.  But  Madison  said,  Hamilton  said, 
the  Fathers  said,  in  1789,  "  No  man  but  an  enemy  of  lib 
erty  will  ever  stand  on  technicalities  and  forms,  when  the 
essence  is  in  question."  Abraham  Lincoln  could  not  see 
the  Commissioners  of  South  Carolina,  but  the  North  could; 
the  nation  could  ;  and  the  nation  responded,  "  If  you  want 
a  Constitutional  secession,  such  as  you  claim,  but  which  I 
repudiate,  I  will  waive  forms :  let  us  meet  in  convention, 
and  we  will  arrange  it."  [Applause.]  Surely,  while  one 
claims  a  right  within  the  Constitution,  he  may,  without 
dishonor  or  inconsistency,  meet  in  convention,  even  if 
finally  refusing  to  be  bound  by  it.  To  decline  doing  so 
is  only  evidence  of  intention  to  provoke  war.  Everything 
under  that  instrument  is  peace.  Everything  under  that 
instrument  may  be  changed  by  a  national  convention. 
The  South  says,  "  No  !  "  She  says,  "  If  you  don't  allow 
me  the  Constitutional  right,  I  claim  the  revolutionary 
right."  The  North  responds,  "When  you  have  torn  the 
Constitution  into  fragments,  I  recognize  the  right  of  THE 
PEOPLE  of  South  Carolina  to  model  their  government. 
Yes,  I  recognize  the  right  of  the  three  hundred  and 
eighty-four  thousand  white  men,  and  four  hundred  and 
eighty-four  thousand  black  men  to  model  their  Constitu 
tion.  Show  me  one  that  they  have  adopted,  and  I  will 
recognize  the  revolution.  [Cheers.]  But  the  moment 
3  ou  tread  outside  of  the  Constitution,  the  black  man  is 
not  three  fifths  of  a  man, — he  is  a  whole  one."  [Loud 
cheering.]  Yes,  the  South  has -the  right  of  revolution; 
the  South  has  a  right  to  model  her  government ;  and  the 


UNDER   THE   FLAG.  405 

moment  she  shows  us  four  million  of  black  votes  thrown 
even  against  it,  and  balanced  by  five  million  of  other 
votes,  I  will  acknowledge  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
is  complied  with  [loud  applause],  —  that  the  PEOPLE 
south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  have  remodelled  their 
government  to  suit  themselves ;  and  our  function  is 
only  to  recognize  it. 

Further  than  this,  we  should  have  the  right  to  remind 
them*  in  the  words  of  our  Declaration  of  Independence, 
that  "governments  long  established  are  not  to  be  changed 
for  light  and  transient  causes,"  and  that,  so  long  as  gov 
ernment  fulfils  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  made,  —  the 
liberty  and  happiness  of  the  people,  —  no  one  section  has 
the  right  capriciously  to  make  changes  which  destroy  joint 
interests,  advantages  bought  by  common  toil  and  sacrifice, 
and  which  division  necessarily  destroys.  Indeed,  we  should 
have  the  right  to  remind  them  that  no  faction,  in  what  has 
been  recognized  as  one  nation,  can  claim,  by  any  law,  the 
right  of  revolution  to  set  up  or  to  preserve  a  system 
which  the  common  conscience  of  mankind  stamps  as  wicked 
and  infamous.  The  law  of  nations  is  only  another  name 
for  the  common  sense  and  average  conscience  of  mankind. 
It  does  not  allow  itself,  like  a  county  court,  to  be  hood 
winked  by  parchments  or  confused  by  technicalities.  In 
its  vocabulary,  the  right  of  revolution  means  the  right  of 
the  people  to  protect  themselves,  not  the  privilege  of  ty 
rants  to  tread  under  foot  good  laws,  and  claim  the  world's 
sympathy  in  riveting  weakened  chains. 

I  say  the  North  had  a  right  to  assume  these  positions. 
She  did  not.  She  had  a  right  to  ignore  revolution  until 
these  conditions  were  complied  with  ;  but  she  did  not. 
She  waived  it.  In  obedience  to  the  advice  of  Madison,  to 
the  long  history  of  her  country's  forbearance,  to  the  mag 
nanimity  of  nineteen  States,  she  waited ;  she  advised  the 
government  to  wait.  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  his  inaugural,  indi- 


406  UNDER   THE   FLAG. 

cated  that  this  would  be  the  wise  course.  Mr.  Seward 
hinted  it  in  his  speech  in  New  York.  The  London  Times 
bade  us  remember  the  useless  war  of  1776,  and  take  warn 
ing  against  resisting  the  principles  of  popular  sovereignty. 
The  Tribune,  whose  unflinching  fidelity  and  matchless 
ability  make  it  in  this  fight  "  the  white  plume  of  Na 
varre,"  has  again  and  again  avowed  its  readiness  .to  waive 
forms  and  go  into  convention.  We  have  waited.  We 
said,  "  Anything  for  peace."  We  obeyed  the  magnani 
mous  statesmanship  of  John  Quincy  Adams.  Let  me 
read  you  his  advice,  given  at  the  "  Jubilee  of  the  Consti 
tution,"  to  the  New  York  Historical  Society,  in  the  year 
1839.  He  says,  recognizing  this  right  of  the  people  of  a 
State,  —  mark  you,  not  a  State :  the  Constitution  in  this 
matter  knows  no  States ;  the  right  of  revolution  knows  no 
States  :  it  knows  only  THE  PEOPLE.  Mr.  Adams  says  :  — 

"  The  PEOPLE  of  each  State  in  the  Union  have  a  right 
to  secede  from  the  confederated  Union  itself. 

"  Thus  stands  the  RIGHT.  But  the  indissoluble  link  of 
union  between  the  people  of  the  several  States  of  this 
confederated  nation  is,  after  all,  not  in  the  right,  but  in 
the  heart. 

"  If  the  day  should  ever  come  (may  Heaven  avert  it !) 
when  the  affections  of  the  people  of  these  States  shall  be 
alienated  from  each  other,  when  the  fraternal  spirit  shall 
give  way  to  cold  indifference,  or  collisions  of  interest  shall 
fester  into  hatred,  the  bands  of  political  association  will  not 
long  hold  together  parties  no  longer  attracted  by  the  mag 
netism  of  conciliated  interests  and  kindly  sympathies  ;  and 
far  better  will  it  be  for  the  people  of  the  disunited  States 
to  part  in  friendship  from  each  other,  than  to  be  held  to 
gether  by  constraint.  Then  will  be  the  time  for  reverting 
to  the  precedents  which  occurred  at  the  formation  and 
adoption  of  the  Constitution,  to  form  again  a  more  perfect 
union,  by  dissolving  that  which  could  no  longer  bind  ;  and 


UNDER   THE   FLAG.  407 

to  leave  the  separated  parts  to  be  reunited  by  the  law  of 
political  gravitation  to  the  centre." 

The  North  said  "  Amen  "  to  every  word  of  it.  They 
waited.  They  begged  the  States  to  meet  them.  They 
were  silent  when  the  cannon-shot  pierced  the  flag  of  the 
Star  of  the  West.  They  said  "  Amen  "  when  the  govern 
ment  offered  to  let  nothing  but  the  bunting  cover  Fort 
Sumter.  They  said  "  Amen'*  when  Lincoln  stood  alone, 
without  arms,  in  a  defenceless  Capital,  and  trusted  him 
self  to  the  loyalty  and  forbearance  of  thirty-four  States. 

The  South,  if  the  truth  be  told,  cannot  wait.  Like  all 
usurpers,  they  dare  not  give  time  for  the  people  to  criticise 
their  power.  War  and  tumult  must  conceal  the  irregular 
ity  of  their  civil  course,  and  smother  discontent  and  criti 
cism  at  the  same  time.  Besides,  bankruptcy  at  home  can 
live  out  its  short  term  of  possible  existence  only  by  con 
quest  on  land  and  piracy  at  sea.  And,  further,  only  by 
war,  by  appeal  to  popular  frenzy,  can  they  hope  to  delude 
the  Border  States  to  join  them.  War  is  the  breath  of 
their  life. 

To-day,  therefore,  the  question  is,  by  the  voice  of  the 
South,  "  Shall  Washington  or  Montgomery  own  the  con 
tinent  ?  "  And  the  North  says,  "  From  the  Gulf  to  the 
Pole,  the  Stars  and  Stripes  shall  atone  to  four  millions  of 
negroes  whom  we  have  forgotten  for  seventy  years  ;  and, 
before  you  break  the  Union,  we  will  see  that  justice  is 
done  to  the  slave."  [Enthusiastic  and  long-continued 
cheers.] 

There  is  only  one  thing  those  cannon-shot  in  the  har 
bor  of  Charleston  settled,  —  that  there  never  can  be  a 
compromise.  [Loud  applause.]  We  Abolitionists  have 
doubted  whether  this  Union  really  meant  justice  and  lib 
erty.  We  have  doubted  the  intention  of  nineteen  mil 
lions  of  people.  They  have  said,  in  answer  to  our  criti 
cism  :  "  We  believe  that  the  Fathers  meant  to  establish 


408  UNDER   THE   FLAG. 

justice.  We  believe  that  there  are  hidden  in  the  armory 
of  the  Constitution  weapons  strong  enough  to  secure  it. 
We  are  willing  yet  to  try  the  experiment.  Grant  us 
time."  We  have  doubted,  derided  the  pretence,  as  we 
supposed.  During  these  long  and  weary  weeks  we  have 
waited  to  hear  the  Northern  conscience  assert  its  purpose. 
It  comes  at  last.  [An  impressive  pause.]  Massachusetts 
blood  has  consecrated  the  pavements  of  Baltimore,  and 
those  stones  are  now  too  sacred  to  be  trodden  by  slaves 
[Loud  cheers.] 

You  and  I  owe  it  to  those  young  martyrs,  you  and  I  owe 
it,  that  their  blood  shall  be  the  seed  of  no  mere  empty  tri 
umph,  but  that  the  negro  shall  teach  his  children  to  bless 
them  for  centuries  to  come.  [Applause.]  When  Massa 
chusetts  goes  down  to  that  Carolina  fort  to  put  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  again  over  its  blackened  walls  [enthusiasm], 
she  will  sweep  from  its  neighborhood  every  institution 
which  hazards  their  ever  bowing  again  to  the  palmetto. 
[Loud  cheers.]  All  of  you  may  not  mean  it  now.  Our 
fathers  did  not  think  in  1775  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence.  The  Long  Parliament  never  thought  of  the 
scaffold  of  Charles  the  First,  when  they  entered  on  the 
struggle  ;  but  having  begun,  they  made  thorough  work. 
[Cheers.]  It  is  an  attribute  of  the  Yankee  blood,  — 
slow  to  fight,  and  fight  once.  [Renewed  cheers.]  It 
was  a  holy  war,  that  for  Independence  :  this  is  a  holier 
and  the  last,  —  that  for  LIBERTY.  [Loud  applause.] 

I  hear  a  great  deal  about  Constitutional  liberty.  The 
mouths  of  Concord  and  Lexington  guns  have  room  only 
for  one  word,  and  that  is  LIBERTY.  You  might  as  well 
ask  Niagara  to  chant  the  Chicago  Platform,  as  to  say  how 
far  war  shall  go.  War  and  Niagara  thunder  to  a  music  of 
their  own.  God  alone  can  launch  the  lightnings,  that  they 
may  go  and  say,  Here  we  are.  The  thunderbolts  of  His 
throne  always  abase  the  proud,  lift  up  the  lowly,  and  exe 
cute  justice  between  man  and  man. 


UNDER   THE   FLAG.  409 

Now  let  me  turn  one  moment  to  another  consideration. 
What  should  the  government  do?  I  said  "thorough" 
should  be  its  maxim.  When  we  fight,  we  are  fighting  for 
justice  and  an  idea.  A  short  war  and  a  rigid  one  is  the 
maxim.  Ten  thousand  men  in  Washington  !  it  is  only  a 
bloody  fight.  Five  hundred  thousand  men  in  Washington, 
and  none  dare  come  there  but  from  the  North.  [Loud 
cheers.]  Occupy  St.  Louis  with  the  millions  of  the  West, 
and  say  to  Missouri,  "  You  cannot  go  out !  "  [Applause.] 
Cover  Maryland  with  a  million  of  the  friends  of  the  ad 
ministration,  and  say  :  "  We  must  have  our  capital  within 
reach.  [Cheers.]  If  you  need  compensation  for  slaves 
taken  from  you  in  the  convulsion  of  battle,  here  it  is. 
[Cheers.]  Government  is  engaged  in  the  fearful  struggle 
to  show  that  '89  meant  justice,  and  there  is  something 
better  than  life,  holier  than  even  real  and  just  property, 
in  such  an  hour  as  this."  And  again,  we  must  remember 
another  thing,  —  the  complication  of  such  a  struggle  as 
this.  Bear  with  me  a  moment.  We  put  five  hundred 
thousand  men  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac.  Virginia  is 
held  by  two  races,  white  and  black.  Suppose  those  black 
men  flare  in  our  faces  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
What  are  we  to  say  ?  Are  we  to  send  Northern  bayonets 
to  keep  slaves  under  the  feet  of  Jefferson  Davis  ?  [Many 
voices,  "  No  !  "  "  Never !  "]  In  1842,  Governor  Wise 
of  Virginia,  the  symbol  of  the  South,  entered  into  argu 
ment  with  Quincy  Adams,  who  carried  Plymouth  Rock  to 
Washington.  [Applause.]  It  was  when  Joshua  Gid- 
dings  offered  his  resolution  stating  his  constitutional  doc 
trine  that  Congress  had  no  right  to  interfere,  in  any  event, 
in  any  way,  with  the  slavery  of  the  Southern  States. 
Plymouth  Rock  refused  to  vote  for  it.  Mr.  Adams  said 
(substantially)  :  "  If  foreign  war  comes,  if  civil  war  comes, 
if  insurrection  comes,  is  this  beleaguered  capital,  is  this 
besieged  government,  to  see  millions  of  its  subjects  in  arms, 


410  UNDER   THE   FLAG. 

and  have  no  right  to  break  the  fetters  which  they  are 
forging  into  swords  ?  No  ;  the  war  power  of  the  govern 
ment  can  sweep  this  institution  into  the  Gulf."  [Cheers.] 
Ever  since  1842,  that  statesman-like  claim  and  warning 
of  the  North  has  heen  on  record,  spoken  by  the  lips  of 
her  wisest  son.  [Applause.] 

When  the  South  cannonaded  Fort  Sumter  the  bones 
of  Adams  stirred  in  his  coffin.  [Cheers.]  And  you 
might  have  heard  him,  from  that  granite  grave  at  Quincy, 
proclaim  to  the  nation  :  "  The  hour  has  struck !  Seize 
the  thunderbolt  God  has  forged  for  you,  and  annihilate 
the  system  which  has  troubled  your  peace  for  seventy 
years !  "  [Cheers.]  Do  not  say  this  is  a  cold-blooded 
suggestion.  I  hardly  ever  knew  slavery  go  down  in  any 
other  circumstances.  Only  once,  in  the  broad  sweep  of 
the  world's  history,  was  any  nation  lifted  so  high  that  she 
could  stretch  her  imperial  hand  across  the  Atlantic,  and 
lift  by  one  peaceful  word  a  million  of  slaves  into  liberty. 
God  granted  that  glory  only  to  our  mother-land. 

You  heedlessly  expected,  and  we  Abolitionists  hoped, 
that  such  would  be  our  course.  Sometimes  it  really 
seemed  so,  and  we  said  confidently,  the  age  of  bullets  is 
over.  At  others  the  sky  lowered  so  darkly  that  we  felt 
our  only  exodus  would  be  one  of  blood ;  that,  like  other 
nations,  our  Bastile  would  fall  only  before  revolution. 
Ten  years  ago  I  asked  you,  How  did  French  slavery  go 
down  ?  How  did  the  French  slave-trade  go  down  ? 
When  Napoleon  came  back  from  Elba,  when  his  fate 
hung  trembling  in  the  balance,  and  he  wished  to  gather 
around  him  the  sympathies  of  the  liberals  of  Europe,  he 
no  sooner  set  foot  in  the  Tuileries  than  he  signed  the 
edict  abolishing  the  slave-trade,  against  which  the  Aboli 
tionists  of  England  and  France  had  protested  for  twenty 
years  in  vain.  And  the  trade  went  down,  because  Napo 
leon  felt  he  must  do  something  to  gild  the  darkening 


UNDER  THE   FLAG.  411 

hour  of  his  second  attempt  to  clutch  the  sceptre  of  France. 
How  did  the  slave  system  go  down  ?  When,  in  1848,  the 
Provisional  Government  found  itself  in  the  H6tel  de  Ville, 
obliged  to  do  something  to  draw  to  itself  the  sympathy 
and  liberal  feeling  of  the  French  nation,  they  signed  an 
edict  —  it  was  the  first  from  the  rising  republic  —  abolish 
ing  the  death-penalty  and  slavery.  The  storm  which 
rocked  the  vessel  of  state  almost  to  foundering  snapped 
forever  the  chain  of  the  French  slave.  Look,  too,  at  the 
history  of  Mexican  and  South  American  emancipation  ; 
you  will  find  that  it  was  in  every  instance,  I  think,  the 
child  of  convulsion. 

That  hour  has  come  to  us.  So  stand  we  to-day.  The 
Abolitionist  who  will  not  now  cry,  when  the  moment 
serves,  "  Up,  boys,  and  at  them  !  "  is  false  to  liber 
ty.  [Great  cheering.  A  voice,  "  So  is  every  other 
man."]  Yes,  to-day  Abolitionist  is  merged  in  citizen,  — 
in  American.  Say  not  it  is  a  hard  lesson.  Let  him  who 
fully  knows  his  own  heart  and  strength,  and  feels,  as  he 
looks  down  into  his  child's  cradle,  that  he  could  stand  and 
see  that  little  nestling  borne  to  slavery,  and  submit, — let 
him  cast  the  first  stone.  But  all  you,  whose  blood  is  wont 
to  stir  over  Naseby  and  Bunker  Hill,  will  hold  your  peace, 
unless  you  are  ready  to  ciy  with  me,  —  Sic  semper  tyran 
nic  !  "So  may  it  ever  be  with  tyrants  ! "  [Loud  ap 
plause.] 

Why,  Americans,  I  believe  in  the  might  of  nineteen 
millions  of  people.  Yes,  I  know  that  what  sewing-ma 
chines  and  reaping-machines  and  ideas  and  types  and 
school-houses  cannot  do,  the  muskets  of  Illinois  and  Mas 
sachusetts  can  finish  up.  [Cheers.]  Blame  me  not  that 
I  make  everything  turn  on  liberty  and  the  slave.  I  be 
lieve  in  Massachusetts.  I  know  that  free  speech,  free  toil, 
school-houses,  and  ballot-boxes  are  a  pyramid  on  its  broad 
est  base.  Nothing  that  does  not  sunder  the  solid  globe  can 


412  UNDER   THE   FLAG. 

disturb  it.  We  defy  the  world  to  disturb  us.  [Cheers.] 
The  little  errors  that  dwell  upon  our  surface,  we  have 
medicine  in  our  institutions  to  cure  them  all.  [Ap 
plause.] 

Therefore  there  is  nothing  left  for  a  New  England 
man,  nothing  but  that  he  shall  wipe  away  the  stain  which 
hangs  about  the  toleration  of  human  bondage.  As  Web 
ster  said  at  Rochester,  years  and  years  ago  :  "  If  I  thought 
that  there  was  a  stain  upon  the  remotest  hem  of  the  gar 
ment  of  my  country,  I  would  devote  my  utmost  labor  to 
wipe  it  off."  [Cheers.]  To-day  that  call  is  made  upon 
Massachusetts.  That  is  the  reason  why  I  dwell  so  much 
on  the  slavery  question.  I  said  I  believed  in  the  power 
of  the  North  to  conquer  ;  but  where  does  she  get  it.  I  do 
not  believe  in  the  power  of  the  North  to  subdue  two  mil 
lions  and  a  half  of  Southern  men,  unless  she  summons  jus 
tice,  the  negro,  and  God  to  her  side  [cheers]  ;  and  in  that 
battle  we  are  sure  of  this,  —  we  are  sure  to  rebuild  the 
Union  down  to  the  Gulf.  [Renewed  cheering.]  In  that 
battle,  with  that  watchword,  with  those  allies,  the  thirteen 
States  and  their  children  will  survive,  —  in  the  light  of  the 
world,  a  nation  which  has  vindicated  the  sincerity  of  the 
Fathers  of  '87,  that  they  bore  children,  and  not  pedlers,  to 
represent  them  in  the  nineteenth  century.  [Repeated 
cheers.]  But  without  that,  —  without  that,  I  know  also 
we  shall  conquer.  Sumter  annihilated  compromise.  Noth 
ing  but  victory  will  blot  from  history  that  sight  of  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  giving  place  to  the  palmetto.  But  without 
justice  for  inspiration,  without  God  for  our  ally,  we  shall 
break  the  Union  asunder ;  we  shall  be  a  confede  racy, 
and  so  will  they.  This  war  means  one  of  two  things,  — 
Emancipation  or  Disunion.  [Cheers.]  Out  of  the  smoke 
of  the  conflict  there  comes  that,  —  nothing  else.  It  is  im 
possible  there  should  come  anything  else.  Now,  I  believe 
tn  the  future  and  permanent  union  of  the  races  that  cover 


UNDER    THE   FLAG.  413 

this  continent  from  the  pole  down  to  the  Gulf.  One  in 
race,  one  in  history,  one  in  religion,  one  in  industry,  one 
in  thought,  we  never  can  be  permanently  separated. 
Your  path,  if  you  forget  the  black  race,  will  be  over  the 
gulf  of  Disunion,  —  years  of  unsettled,  turbulent,  Mexican 
and  South  American  civilization,  back  through  that  desert 
of  forty  years  to  the  Union  which  is  sure  to  come. 

But  I  believe  in  a  deeper  conscience,  I  believe  in  a 
North  more  educated  than  that.  I  divide  you  into  four 
sections.  The  first  is  the  ordinary  mass,  rushing  from 
mere  enthusiasm  to 

"  A  battle  whose  great  aim  and  scope 

They  little  care  to  know, 
Content,  like  men-at-arms,  to  cope 
Each  with  his  fronting  foe." 

Behind  that  class  stands  another,  whose  only  idea  in 
this  controversy  is  sovereignty  and  the  flag.  The  sea 
board,  the  wealth,  the  just-converted  hunkerism  of  the 
country,  fill  that  class.  Next  to  it  stands  the  third  ele 
ment,  the  people  ;  the  cordwainers  of  Lynn,  the  farmers 
of  Worcester,  the  dwellers  on  the  prairie,  —  Iowa  and 
Wisconsin,  Ohio  and  Maine,  —  the  broad  surface  of  the 
people  who  have  no  leisure  for  technicalities,  who  never 
studied  law,  who  never  had  time  to  read  any  further  into 
the  Constitution  than  the  first  two  lines,  — u  Establish 
Justice  and  secure  Liberty"  They  have  waited  long 
enough  ;  they  have  eaten  dirt  enough ;  they  have  apolo 
gized  for  bankrupt  statesmen  enough  ;  they  have  quieted 
their  consciences  enough  ;  they  have  split  logic  with  their 
Abolition  neighbors  long  enough  ;  they  are  tired  of  trying 
to  find  a  place  between  the  forty-ninth  and  forty-eighth 
corner  of  a  constitutional  hair  [laughter]  ;  and  now  that 
they  have  got  their  hand  on  the  neck  of  a  rebellious  aris 
tocracy,  in  the  name  of  the  PEOPLE,  they  mean  to  strangle 
it.  That  I  believe  is  the  body  of  the  people  itself.  Side 


414  UNDER   THE   FLAG. 

by  side  with  them  stands  a  fourth  class,  —  small,  but  active, 
—  the  Abolitionists,  who  thank  God  that  he  has  let  them 
see  his  salvation  before  they  die.  [Cheers.] 

The  noise  and  dust  of  the  conflict  may  hide  the  real 
question  at  issue.  Europe  may  think,  some  of  us  may, 
that  we  are  fighting  for  forms  and  parchments,  for  sover 
eignty  and  a  flag.  J3ut  really  the  war  is  one  of  opinions  : 
it  is  Civilization  against  Barbarism :  it  is  Freedom  against 
Slavery.  The  cannon-shot  against  Fort  Sumter  was  the 
yell  of  pirates  against  the  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE  ; 
the  war-cry  of  the  North  is  the  echo  of  that  sublime 
pledge.  The  South,  defying  Christianity,  clutches  its  vic 
tim.  The  North  offers  its  wealth  and  blood  in  glad  atone 
ment  for  the  selfishness  of  seventy  years.  The  result  is  as 
sure  as  the  throne  of  God.  I  believe  in  the  possibility  of 
justice,  in  the  certainty  of  union.  Years  hence,  when 
the  smoke  of  this  conflict  clears  away,  the  world  will  see 
under  our  banner  all  tongues,  all  creeds,  all  races,  —  one 
brotherhood,  —  and  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  the 
Genius  of  Liberty,  robed  in  light,  four  and  thirty  stars  for 
her  diadem,  broken  chains  under  feet,  and  an  olive-branch 
in  her  right  hand.  [Great  applause.] 


THE  WAR  FOR  THE  UNION.* 


LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN :  It  would  be  impossi 
ble  for  me  fitly  to  thank  you  for  this  welcome  ;  you 
will  allow  me,  therefore,  not  to  attempt  it,  but  to  avail 
myself  of  your  patience  to  speak  to  you,  as  I  have  been 
invited  to  do,  upon  the  war. 

I  know,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  that  actions  —  deeds, 
not  words  —  are  the  fitting  duty  of  the  hour.  Yet,  still, 
cannon  think  in  this  day  of  ours,  and  it  is  only  by  putting 
thought  behind  arms  that  we  render  them  worthy,  in  any 
degree,  of  the  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century.  [Ap 
plause.]  Besides,  the  government  has  two  thirds  of  a 
million  of  soldiers,  and  it  has  ships  sufficient  for  its  pur 
pose.  The  only  question  seems  to  be,  what  the  govern 
ment  is  to  do  with  these  forces,  —  in  what  path,  and  how 
far  it  shall  tread.  You  and  I  come  here  to-night,  not  to 
criticise,  not  to  find  fault  with  the  Cabinet.  We  come 
here  to  recognize  the  fact,  that  in  moments  like  these  the 
statesmanship  of  the  Cabinet  is  but  a  pine  shingle  upon  the 
rapids  of  Niagara,  borne  which  way  the  great  popular 
heart  and  the  national  purpose  direct.  It  is  in  vain  now, 
with  these  scenes  about  us,  in  this  crisis,  to  endeavor  to 
create  public  opinion  ;  too  late  now  to  educate  twenty 
millions  of  people.  Our  object  now  is  to  concentrate  and 
to  manifest,  to  make  evident  and  to  make  intense,  the  ma 
tured  purpose  of  the  nation.  We  are  to  show  the  world, 
*  Lecture  delivered  in  New  York  and  Boston,  December,  1861. 


416  THE   WAR   FOB   THE   UNION. 

if  it  be  indeed  so,  that  democratic  institutions  are  strong 
enough  for  such  an  hour  as  this.  Very  terrible  as  is  the 
conspiracy,  momentous  as  is  the  peril,  Democracy  wel 
comes  the  struggle,  confident  that  she  stands  like  no  deli 
cately-poised  throne  in  the  Old  World,  but,  like  the  Pyra 
mid,  on  its  broadest  base,  able  to  be  patient  with  national 
evils,  —  generously  patient  with  the  long  forbearance  of 
three  generations,  —  and  strong  enough  when,  after  that 
they  reveal  themselves  in  their  own  inevitable  and  hideous 
proportions,  to  pronounce  and  execute  the  unanimous  ver- 
—  Death  ! 

ow,  Gentlemen,  it  is  in  such  a  spirit,  with  such  a  pur- 
,  that  I  come  before  you  to-night  to  sustain  this  war. 
Whence  came  this  war  ?  You  and  I  need  not  curiously 
investigate.  While  Mr.  Everett  on  one  side,  and  Mr. 
Sumner  on  the  other,  agree,  you  and  I  may  take  for 
granted  the  opinion  of  two  such  opposite  statesmen,  —  the 
result  of  the  common  sense  of  this  side  of  the  water  and 
the  other,  —  that  slavery  is  the  root  of  this  war.  [Ap 
plause.]  I  know  some  men  have  Joved  to  trace  it  to  dis 
appointed  ambition,  to  the  success  of  the  Republican  party, 
convincing  three  hundred  thousand  nobles  at  the  South, 
who  have  hitherto  furnished  us  the  most  of  the  presidents, 
generals,  judges,  and  ambassadors  we  needed,  that  they 
would  have  leave  to  stay  at  home,  and  that  twenty  millions 
of  Northerners  would  take  their  share  in  public  affairs.  I 
do  not  think  that  cause  equal  to  the  result.  Other  men  be 
fore  Jefferson  Davis  and  Governor  Wise  have  been  disap 
pointed  of  the  Presidency.  Henry  Clay,  Daniel  Webster, 
and  Stephen  A.  Douglas  were  more  than  once  disappointed, 
and  yet  who  believes  that  either  of  these  great  men  could 
have  armed  the  North  to  avenge  his  wrongs  ?  Why,  then, 
should  these  pigmies  of  the  South  be  able  to  do  what  the 
giants  I  have  named  could  never  achieve  ?  Simply  be 
cause  there  is  a  radical  difference  between  the  two  sec- 


THE  WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  417 

tions,  and  that  difference  is  slavery.  A  party  victory  may 
have  been  the  occasion  of  this  outbreak.  So  a  tea-chest 
was  the  occasion  of  the  Revolution,  and  it  went  to  the 
bottom  of  Boston  harbor  on  the  night  of  the  16th  of  De 
cember,  1773 ;  but  that  tea-chest  was  not  the  cause  of  the 
Revolution,  neither  is  Jefferson  Davis  the  cause  of  the  re 
bellion.  If  you  will  look  upon  the  map,  and  notice  that 
every  Slave  State  has  joined  or  tried  to  join  the  rebellion, 
and  no  Free  State  has  done  so,  I  think  you  will  not  doubt 
substantially  the  origin  of  this  convulsion. 

Now,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  you  know  me  —  those  of 
you  who  know  me  at  all  —  simply  as  an  Abolitionist.  I 
am  proud  and  glad  that  you  should  have  known  me  as 
such.  In  the  twenty-five  years  that  are  gone,  —  I  say  it 
with  no  wish  to  offend  any  man  before  me,  —  but  in  the 
quarter  of  a  century  that  has  passed,  I  could  find  no  place 
where  an  American  could  stand  with  decent  self-respect, 
except  in  constant,  uncontrollable,  and  loud  protest  against 
the  sin  of  his  native  land.  But,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen, 
do  not  imagine  that  I  come  here  to-night  to  speak  simply 
and  exclusively  as  an  Abolitionist.  My  interest  in  this 
war,  simply  and  exclusively  as  an  Abolitionist,  is  about  as 
much  gone  as  yours  in  a  novel  where  the  hero  has  won 
the  lady,  and  the  marriage  has  been  comfortably  celebrated 
in  the  last  chapter.  I  know  the  danger  of  political  prophe 
cy,  —  a  kaleidoscope  of  which  not  even  a  Yankee  can  guess 
the  next  combination,  —  but  for  all  that,  I  venture  to  offer 
my  opinion,  that  on  this  continent  the  system  of  domestic 
slavery  has  received  its  death-blow.  [Loud  and  long-con 
tinued  applause.]  Let  me  tell  you  why  I  think  so.  Leav 
ing  out  of  view  war  with  England,  which  I  do  not  expect, 
there  are  but  three  paths  out  of  this  war.  One  is,  the 
North  conquers ;  the  other  is,  the  South  conquers  ;  and 
the  third  is,  a  compromise.  Now,  if  the  North  conquers, 
or  there  be  a  compromise,  one  or  the  other  of  two  things 

27 


418  THE  WAR   FOR   THE   UNION. 

must  come,  —  either  the  old  Constitution  or  a  new  one.  I 
believe  that,  so  far  as  the  slavery  clauses  of  the  Constitution 
of  '89  are  concerned,  it  is  dead.  It  seems  to  me  impossible 
that  the  thrifty  and  painstaking  North,  after  keeping  six 
hundred  thousand  men  idle  for  two  or  three  years,  at  a  cost 
of  two  million  dollars  a  day ;  after  that  flag  lowered  at 
Sumter ;  after  Baker  and  Lyon  and  Ellsworth  and  Win- 
throp  and  Putnam  and  Wesselhoeft  have  given  their  lives 
to  quell  the  rebellion  ;  after  our  Massachusetts  boys,  hur 
rying  from  ploughed  field  and  workshop  to  save  the  capital, 
have  been  foully  murdered  on  the  pavements  of  Baltimore, 
—  I  cannot  believe  in  a  North  so  lost,  so  craven,  as  to  put 
back  slavery  where  it  stood  on  the  4th  of  March  last. 
[Cheers.]  But  if  there  be  reconstruction  without  those 
slave  clauses,  then  in  a  little  while,  longer  or  shorter,  slav 
ery  dies,  —  indeed,  on  any  other  basis  but  the  basis  of 
'89,  she  has  nothing  else  now  to  do  but  to  die.  On  the 
contrary,  if  the  South  —  no,  I  cannot  say  conquers  —  my 
lips  will  not  form  that  word  — but  if  she  balks  us  of  vic 
tory,  the  only  way  she  can  do  it  is  to  write  Emancipation 
on  her  own  banner,  and  thus  bribe  the  friends  of  liberty 
in  Europe  to  allow  its  aristocrats  and  traders  to  divide  the 
majestic  republic  whose  growth  and  trade  they  fear  and 
.envy.  Either  way,  the  slave  goes  free.  Unless  England 
flings  her  fleets  along  the  coast,  the  South  can  never  spring 
into  separate  existence,  except  from  the  basis  of  negro 
freedom ;  and  I  for  one  cannot  yet  believe  that  the  North 
will  consent  again  to  share  his  chains.  Exclusively  as  an 
Abolitionist,  therefore,  I  have  little  more  -interest  in  this 
war  than  the  frontiersman's  wife  had  in  his  struggle  with 
the  bear,  when  she  did  n't  care  which  whipped.  But  be 
fore  I  leave  the  Abolitionists,  let  me  say  one  word.  Some 
men  say  we  are  the  cause  of  this  war.  Gentlemen,  you 
do  us  too  much  honor !  If  it  be  so,  we  have  reason  to  be 
proud  of  it ;  for  in  my  heart,  as  an  American,  I  believe 


THE    WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  419 

this  year  the  most  glorious  of  the  Republic  since  '76. 
The  North,  craven  and  contented  until  now,  like  Mam 
mon,  saw  nothing  even  in  heaven  but  the  golden  pave 
ment;  to-day  she  throws  off  her  chains.  We  have  a 
North,  as  Daniel  Webster  said.  This  is  no  epoch  for 
nations  to  blush  at.  England  might  blush  in  1620,  when 
Englishmen  trembled  at  a  fool's  frown,  and  were  silent 
when  James  forbade  them  to  think ;  but  not  in  1649, 
when  an  outraged  people  cut  off  his  son's  head.  Massa 
chusetts  might  have  blushed  a  year  or  two  ago,  when  an 
insolent  Virginian,  standing  on  Bunker  Hill,  insulted  the 
Commonwealth,  and  then  dragged  her  citizens  to  Wash 
ington  to  tell  what  they  knew  about  John  Brown  ;  but 
she  has  no  reason  to  blush  to-day,  when  she  holds  that 
same  impudent  Senator  an  acknowledged  felon  in  her 
prison-fort.  In  my  view,  the  bloodiest  war  ever  waged 
is  infinitely  better  than  the  happiest  slavery  which  ever 
fattened  men  into  obedience.  And  yet  I  love  peace. 
But  it  is  real  peace ;  not  peace  such  as  we  have  had  ; 
not  peace  that  meant  lynch-law  in  the  Carolinas  and  mob- 
law  in  New  York ;  not  peace  that  meant  chains  around 
Boston  Court-House,  a  gag  on  the  lips  of  statesmen,  and 
the  slave  sobbing  himself  to  sleep  in  curses.  No  more 
such  peace  for  me ;  no  peace  that  is  not  born  of  justice, 
and  does  not  recognize  the  rights  of  every  race  and  every 
man. 

Some  men  say  they  would  view  this  war  as  white  men. 
I  condescend  to  no  such  narrowness.  I  view  it  as  an 
American  citizen,  proud  to  be  the  citizen  of  an  empire 
that  knows  neither  black  nor  white,  neither  Saxon  nor 
Indian,  but  holds  an  equal  sceptre  over  all.  [Loud 
cheers.]  If  I  am  to  love  my  country,  it  must  be  lovable  ; 
if  I  am  to  honor  it,  it  must  be  worthy  of  respect.  What 
is  the  function  God  gives  us,  —  what  is  the  breadth  of  re 
sponsibility  he  lays  upon  us  ?  An  empire,  the  home  of 


420  THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION. 

every  race,  every  creed,  every  tongue,  to  whose  citizens 
is  committed,  if  not  the  only,  then  the  grandest  system  of 
pure  self-government.  Tocqueville  tells  us  that  all  na 
tions  and  all  ages  tend  with  inevitable  certainty  to  this 
result ;  but  he  points  out,  as  history  does,  this  land  as  the 
normal  school  of  the  nations,  set  by  God  to  try  the  experi 
ment  of  popular  education  and  popular  government,  to 
remove  the  obstacles,  point  out  the  dangers,  find  the  best 
way,  encourage  the  timid,  and  hasten  the  world's  progress. 
Let  us  see  to  it,  that  with  such  a  crisis  and  such  a  past, 
neither  the  ignorance,  nor  the  heedlessness,  nor  the  cow 
ardice  of  Americans  forfeits  this  high  honor,  won  for  us  by 
the  toils  of  two  generations,  given  to  us  by  the  blessing  of 
Providence.  It  is  as  a  citizen  of  the  leading  State  of  this 
Western  continent,  vast  in  territory,  and  yet  its  territory 
nothing  when  compared  with  the  grandeur  of  its  past  and 
the  majesty  of  its  future,  —  it  is  as  such  a  citizen  that  I 
wish,  for  one,  to  find  out  my  duty,  express  as  an  indi 
vidual  my  opinion,  and  aid  thereby  the  Cabinet  in  doing 
its  duty  under  such  responsibility.  It  does  not  lie  in  one 
man  to  ruin  us,  nor  in  one  man  to  save  us,  nor  in  a  dozen. 
It  lies  in  the  twenty  millions,  in  the  thirty  millions,  of 
thirty-four  States. 

Now  how  do  we  stand?  In  a  war,  —  not  only  that, 
but  a  terrific  war,  —  not  a  war  sprung  from  the  caprice 
of  a  woman,  the  spite  of  a  priest,  the  flickering  ambition 
of  a  prince,  as  wars  usually  have  ;  but  a  war  inevitable  ; 
in  one  sense,  nobody's  fault ;  the  inevitable  result  of  past 
training,  the  conflict  of  ideas,  millions  of  people  grappling 
each  other's  throats,  every  soldier  in  each  camp  certain 
that  he  is  fighting  for  an  idea  which  holds  the  salvation 
of  the  world,  —  every  drop  of  his  blood  in  earnest.  Such 
a  war  finds  no  parallel  nearer  than  that  of  the  Catholic 
and  the  Huguenot  of  France,  or  that  of  Aristocrat  and 
Republican  in  1790,  or  of  Cromwell  and  the  Irish,  when 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  421 

Tictory  meant  extermination.  Such  is  our  war.  I  look 
upon  it  as  the  commencement  of  the  great  struggle  be 
tween  the  disguised  aristocracy  and  the  democracy  of 
America.  You  are  to  say  to-day  whether  it  shall  last  ten 
years  or  seventy,  as  it  usually  has  done.  It  resembles 
closely  that  struggle  between  aristocrat  and  democrat 
which  began  in  France  in  1789,  and  continues  still. 
While  it  lasts,  it  will  have  the  same  effect  on  the  nation 
as  that  war  between  blind  loyalty,  represented  by  the 
Stuart  family,  and  the  free  spirit  of  the  English  Constitu 
tion,  which  lasted  from  1660  to  1760,  and  kept  England 
a  second-rate  power  almost  all  that  century. 

Such  is  the  era  on  which  you  are  entering.  I  will  not 
speak  of  war  in  itself,  —  I  have  no  time ;  I  will  not  say, 
with  Napoleon,  that  it  is  the  practice  of  barbarians ;  I  will 
not  say  that  it  is  good.  It  is  better  than  the  past.  A 
thing  may  be  better,  and  yet  not  good.  This  war  is  better 
than  the  past,  but  there  is  not  an  element  of  good  in  it. 
I  mean,  there  is  nothing  in  it  which  we  might  not  have 
gotten  better,  fuller,  and  more  perfectly  in  other  ways. 
And  yet  it  is  better  than  the  craven  past,  infinitely  better 
than  a  peace  which  had  pride  for  its  father  and  subser 
viency  for  its  mother.  Neither  will  I  speak  of  the  cost  of 
war,  although  you  know  that  we  never  shall  get  out  of  this 
one  without  a  debt  of  at  least  two  or  three  thousand  mil 
lions  of  dollars.  For  if  the  prevalent  theory  prove  correct, 
and  the  country  comes  together  again  on  anything  like  the 
old  basis,  we  pay  Jeff  Davis's  debts  as  well  as  our  own. 
Neither  will  I  remind  you  that  debt  is  the  fatal  disease  of 
republics,  the  first  thing  and  the  mightiest  to  undermine 
government  and  corrupt  the  people.  The  great  debt  of 
England  has  kept  her  back  in  civil  progress  at  least  a 
hundred  years.  Neither  will  I  remind  you  that,  when  we 
go  out  of  this  war,  we  go  out  with  an  immense  disbanded 
army,  an  intense  military  spirit  embodied  in  two  thirds  of 


422  THE   WAR   FOR   THE  UNION. 

a  million  of  soldiers,  the  fruitful,  the  inevitable  source 
of  fresh  debts  and  new  wars.  I  pass  by  all  that ;  yet  lying 
within  those  causes  are  things  enough  to  make  the  most 
sanguine  friends  of  free  institutions  tremble  for  our  future. 
I  pass  those  by.  But  let  me  remind  you  of  another  ten 
dency  of  the  time.  You  know,  for  instance,  that  the  writ 
of  habeas  corpus,  by  which  government  is  bound  to  render 
a  reason  to  the  judiciary  before  it  lays  its  hands  upon  a 
citizen,  has  been  called  the  high-water  mark  of  English  lib 
erty.  Jefferson,  in  his  calm  moments,  dreaded  the  power 
to  suspend  it  in  any  emergency  whatever,  and  wished  to 
have  it  in  "eternal  and  unremitting  force."  The  present 
Napoleon,  in  his  treatise  on  the  English  Constitution,  calls 
it  the  gem  of  English  institutions.  Lieber  says  that  habeas 
corpus,  free  meetings  like  this,  and  a  free  press,  are  the 
three  elements  which  distinguish  liberty  from  despotism. 
All  that  Saxon  blood  has  gained  in  the  battles  and  toils  of 
two  hundred  years  are  these  three  things.  But  to-day, 
Mr.  Chairman,  every  one  of  them  —  habeas  corpus,  the 
right  of  free  meeting,  and  a  free  press  —  is  annihilated  in 
every  square  mile  of  the  Republic.  We  live  to-day, 
every  one  of  us,  under  martial  law.  The  Secretary  of 
State  puts  into  his  bastile,  with  a  warrant  as  irresponsible 
as  that  of  Louis,  any  man  whom  he  pleases.  And  you 
know  that  neither  press  nor  lips  may  venture  to  arraign 
the  government  without  being  silenced.  At  this  moment 
one  thousand  men,  at  least,  are  "bastiled"  by  an  authority 
as  despotic  as  that  of  Louis,  —  three  times  as  many  as 
Eldon  and  George  III.  seized  when  they  trembled  for  his 
throne.  Mark  me,  I  am  not  complaining.  I  do  not  say 
it  is  not  necessary.  It  is  necessary  to  do  anything  to  save 
the  ship.  [Applause.]  It  is  necessary  to  throw  every 
thing  overboard  in  order  that  we  may  float.  It  is  a  mere 
question  whether  you  prefer  the  despotism  of  Washington 
or  that  of  Richmond.  I  prefer  that  of  Washington.  [Loud 


THE   WAB   FOR   THE    UNION.  423 

applause.]  But,  nevertheless,  I  point  out  to  you  this  ten 
dency,  because  it  is  momentous  in  its  significance.  We 
are  tending  with  rapid  strides,  you  say  inevitably,  —  I  do 
not  deny  it ;  necessarily,  —  I  do  not  question  it ;  we  are 
tending  toward  that  strong  government  which  frightened 
Jefferson  ;  toward  that  unlimited  debt,  that  endless  army. 
We  have  already  those  alien  and  sedition  laws  which,  in 
1798,  wrecked  the  Federal  party,  and  summoned  the 
Democratic  into  existence.  For  the  first  time  on  this 
continent  we  have  passports,  which  even  Louis  Napoleon 
pronounces  useless  and  odious.  For  the  first  time  in  our 
history  government  spies  frequent  our  great  cities.  And 
this  model  of  a  strong  government,  if  you  reconstruct  it  on 
the  old  basis,  is  to  be  handed  into  the  keeping  of  whom  ? 
If  you  compromise  it  by  reconstruction,  to  whom  are  you 
to  give  these  delicate  and  grave  powers  ?  To  compro 
misers.  Reconstruct  this  government,  and  for  twenty 
years  you  can  never  elect  a  Republican.  Presidents  must 
be  so  wholly  without  character  or  principle,  that  two 
angry  parties,  each  hopeless  of  success,  contemptuously 
tolerate  them  as  neutrals.  Now  I  am  not  exaggerating 
the  moment.  I  can  parallel  it  entirely.  It  is  the  same 
position  that  England  held  in  the  times  of  Eldon  and  Fox, 
when  Holcroft  and  Montgomery,  the  poet,  Home  Tooke 
and  Frost  and  Hardy,  went  into  dungeons,  under  laws 
which  Pitt  executed  and  Burke  praised, — times  when  Fox 
said  he  despaired  of  English  liberty  but  for  the  power  of 
insurrection,  —  times  which  Sidney  Smith  said  he  remem 
bered,  when  no  man  was  entitled  to  an  opinion  who  had 
not  £  3,000  a  year.  Why!  there  is  no  right —  do  I  ex 
aggerate  when  I  say  that  there  is  no  single  right? — which 
government  is  scrupulous  and  finds  itself  able  to  protect, 
except  the  pretended  right  of  a  man  to  his  slaves  !  Every 
other  right  has  fallen  now  before  the  necessities  of  the 
hour. 


424  THE  WAR   FOR   THE   UNION. 

Understand  me,  I  do  not  complain  of  this  state  of 
things  ;  but  it  is  momentous.  I  only  ask  you,  that  out  of 
this  peril  you  be  sure  to  get  something  worthy  of  the  crisis 
through  which  you  have  passed.  No  government  of  free 
make  could  stand  three  such  trials  as  this.  I  only  paint, 
you  the  picture,  in  order,  like  Hotspur,  to.  say:  "  Out  of 
this  nettle,  danger,  be  you  right  eminently  sure  that  you 
pluck  the  flower,  safety."  [Applause.]  Standing  in 
such  a  crisis,  certainly  it  commands  us  that  we  should 
endeavor  to  find  the  root  of  the  difficulty,  and  that  now, 
once  for  all,  we  should  put  it  beyond  the  possibility  of 
troubling  our  peace  again.  We  cannot  afford,  as  Repub 
licans,  to  run  that  risk.  The  vessel  of  state,  —  her  tim 
bers  are  strained  beyond  almost  the  possibility  of  surviving. 
The  tempest  is  one  which  it  demands  the  wariest  pilot  to 
outlive.  We  cannot  afford,  thus  warned,  to  omit  anything 
which  can  save  this  ship  of  state  from  a  second  danger  of 
the  kind. 

What  shall  we  do  ?  The  answer  to  that  question  comes 
partly  from  what  we  think  has  been  the  cause  of  this  con 
vulsion.  Some  men  think  —  some  of  your  editors  think 
—  many  of  ours,  too  —  that  this  war  is  nothing  but  the 
disappointment  of  one  or  two  thousand  angered  politicians, 
who  have  persuaded  eight  millions  of  Southerners,  against 
their  convictions,  to  take  up  arms  and  rush  to  the  battle 
field; — no  great  compliment  to  Southern  sense  !  [Laugh 
ter.]  They  think  that,  if  the  Federal  army  could  only 
appear  in  the  midst  of  this  demented  mass,  the  eight 
millions  will  find  out  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives  that 
they  have  got  souls  of  their  own,  tell  us  so,  and  then  we 
shall  all  be  piloted  back,  float  back,  drift  back  into  the 
good  old  times  of  Franklin  Pierce  and  James  Buchanan. 
[Laughter.]  There  is  a  measure  of  truth  in  that.  I 
believe  that  if,  a  year  ago,  when  the  thing  first  showed 
itself,  Jefferson  Davis  and  Toombs  and  Keitt  and  Wise, 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE  UNION.  425 

and  the  rest,  had  been  hung  for  traitors  at  Washington, 
and  a  couple  of  frigates  anchored  at  Charleston,  another 
couple  in  Savannah,  and  half  a  dozen  in  New  Orleans, 
with  orders  to  shell  those  cities  on  the  first  note  of  resist 
ance,  there  never  would  have  been  this  outbreak  [ap 
plause],  or  it  would  have  been  postponed  at  least  a  dozen 
years  ;  and  if  that  interval  had  been  used  to  get  rid  of 
slavery,  we  never  should  have  heard  of  the  convulsion. 
But  you  know  we  had  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  the  con 
sequence  is,  what  ?  Why,  the  amazed  North  has  been 
summoned  by  every  defeat  and  every  success,  from  its 
workshops  and  its  factories,  to  gaze  with  wide-opened  eyes 
at  the  lurid  heavens,  until  at  last,  divided,  bewildered, 
confounded,  as  this  twenty  millions  were,  we  have  all  of  us 
fused  into  one  idea,  that  the  Union  meant  justice,  —  shall 
mean  justice,  —  owns  down  to  the  Gulf,  and  we  will  have 
it.  [Applause.]  What  has  taken  place  meanwhile  at  the 
South  ?  Why,  the  same  thing.  The  divided,  bewildered 
South  has  been  summoned  also  out  of  her  divisions  by 
every  success  and  every  defeat  (and  she  has  had  more  of 
the  first  than  we  have),  and  the  consequence  is,  that  she 
too  is  fused  into  a  swelling  sea  of  State  pride,  hate  of 
the  North,  — 

"  Unconquerable  will, 
And  study  of  revenge,  immortal  hate, 
And  courage  never  to  submit  nor  yield." 

She  is  in  earnest,  every  man,  and  she  is  as  unanimous 
as  the  Colonies  were  in  the  Revolution.  In  fact,  the  South 
recognizes  more  intelligibly  than  we  do  the  necessities  of 
her  position.  I  do  not  consider  this  a  secession.  It  is  no 
secession.  I  agree  with  Bishop-General  Polk,  —  it  is  a 
conspiracy,  not  a  secession.  There  is  no  wish,  no  inten 
tion  to  go  peaceably  and  permanently  off.  It  is  a  con 
spiracy  to  make  the  government  do  the  will  and  accept 
the  policy  of  the  slaveholders.  Its  root  is  at  the  South, 


426  THE  WAR   FOB  THE   UNION. 

but  it  has  many  a  branch  in  Wall  Street  and  in  State 
Street.  [Cheers.]  It  is  a  conspiracy,  and  on  the  one 
side  is  every  man  who  still  thinks  that  he  that  steals  his 
brother  is  a  gentleman,  and' he  that  makes  his  living  is  not. 
[Applause.]  It  is  the  aristocratic  element  which  survived 
the  Constitution,  which  our  fathers  thought  could  be  safely 
left  under  it,  and  the  South  to-day  is  forced  into  this  war 
by  the  natural  growth  of  the  antagonistic  principle.  You 
may  pledge  whatever  submission  and  patience  of  Southern 
institutions  you  please,  it  is  not  enough.  South  Carolina 
said  to  Massachusetts  in  1835,  when  Edward  Everett  was 
Governor,  "Abolish  free  speech,  —  it  is  a  nuisance." 
She  is  right,  —  from  her  stand-point  it  is.  [Laughter.] 
That  is,  it  is  not  possible  to  preserve  the  quiet  of  South 
Carolina  consistently  with  free  speech  ;  but  you  know  the 
story  Sir  Walter  Scott  told  of  the  Scotch  laird,  who  said 
to  his  old  butler,  "  Jock,  you  and  I  can't  live  under  this 
roof."  "And  where  does  your  honor  think  of  going?" 
So  free  speech  says  to  South  Carolina  to-day.  Now  I  say 
you  may  pledge,  compromise,  guarantee  what  you  please. 
The  South  well  knows  that  it  is  not  your  purpose,  —  it  is 
your  character  she  dreads.  It  is  the  nature  of  Northern 
institutions,  the  perilous  freedom  of  discussion,  the  flavor 
of  our  ideas,  the  sight  of  our  growth,  the  very  neighbor 
hood  of  such  States,  that  constitutes  the  danger.  It  is 
like  the  two  vases  launched  on  the  stormy  sea.  The  iron 
said  to  the  crockery,  "  I  won't  come  near  you."  "  Thank 
you,"  said  the  weaker  vessel ;  "  there  is  just  as  much 
danger  in  my  coming  near  you."  This  the  South  feels ; 
hence  her  determination ;  hence,  indeed,  the  imperious 
necessity  that  she  should  rule  and  shape  our  government, 
or  of  sailing  out  of  it.  I  do  not  mean  that  she  plans  to 
take  possession  of  the  North,  and  choose  our  Northern 
Mayors ;  though  she  has  done  that  in  Boston  for  the  last 
dozen  years,  and  here  till  this  fall.  But  she  conspires  and 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  427 

aims  to  control  just  so  much  of  our  policy,  trade,  offices, 
presses,  pulpits,  cities,  as  is  sufficient  to  insure  the  undis 
turbed  existence  of  slavery.  She  conspires  with  the  full 
intent  so  to  mould  this  government  as  to  keep  it  what  it  has 
been  for  thirty  years,  according  to  John  Quincy  Adams, 

—  a  plot  for  the  extension  and  perpetuation  of  slavery. 
As  the  world  advances,  fresh  guaranties  are  demanded. 
The  nineteenth   century  requires   sterner  gags  than   the 
eighteenth.     Often  as  the  peace  of  Virginia  is  in  danger, 
you  must  be  willing  that  a  Virginia  Mason  shall  drag  your 
citizens  to  Washington,  and  imprison  them  at  his  pleasure. 
So  long  as  Carolina  needs  it,  you  must  submit  that  your 
ships   be   searched  for  dangerous  passengers,  and    every 
Northern  man  lynched.     No  more  Kansas  rebellions.     It 
is    a   conflict  between   the  two  powers,  Aristocracy  and 
Democracy,  which  shall  hold  this  belt  of  the  continent.     You 
may  live  here,  New  York  men,  but  it  must  be  in  submis 
sion  to  such  rules  as  the  quiet  of  Carolina  requires.     That 
is  the  meaning  of  the  oft-repeated  threat  to  call  the  roll  of 
one's  slaves  on  Bunker  Hill,  and  dictate  peace  in  Faneuil 
Hall.     Now,  in  that  fight,  I  go  for  the  North,  —  for  the 
Union. 

In  order  to  make  out  this  theory  of  "'  irrepressible  con 
flict,"  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  every  Southerner 
hates  every  Northerner  (as  the  Atlantic  Monthly  urges). 
But  this  much  is  true  :  some  three  hundred  thousand  slave 
holders  at  the  South,  holding  two  thousand  millions  of  so- 
called  property  in  their  hands,  controlling  the  blacks,  and 
befooling  the  seven  millions  of  poor  whites  into  being  their 
tools,  —  into  believing  that  their  interest  is  opposed  to  ours, 

—  this  order  of  nobles,  this  privileged  class,  has  been  able 
for  forty  years  to  keep  the  government  in   dread,  dictate 
terms  by  threatening  disunion,  bring  us   to  its  verge  at 
least  twice,  and  now  almost  to  break  the  Union  in  pieces. 
A.   power    thus  consolidated,   which  has   existed  seventy 


428  THE   WAR   FOB   THE   UNION. 

years,  setting  up  and  pulling  down  parties,  controlling  the 
policy  of  the  government,  and  changing  our  religion,  and 
is  emboldened  by  uniform  success,  will  not  burst  like  a 
bubble  in  an  hour.  For  all  practical  purposes,  it  is  safe 
to  speak  of  it  as  the  South  ;  no  other  South  exists,  or  will 
exist,  till  our  policy  develops  it  into  being.  This  is  what 
I  mean.  An  aristocracy  rooted  in  wealth,  with  its  net 
work  spread  over  all  social  life,  its  poison  penetrating 
every  fibre  of  society,  is  the  hardest  possible  evil  to  de 
stroy.  Its  one  influence,  FASHION,  is  often  able  to  mock 
at  Religion,  Trade,  Literature,  and  Politics  combined. 
One  half  the  reason  why  Washington  has  been  and  is  in 
peril,  —  why  every  move  is  revealed  and  checkmated,  — 
is  that  your  President  is  unfashionable,  and  Mrs.  Jefferson 
Davis  is  not.  Unseen  chains  are  sometimes  stronger  than 
those  of  iron,  and  heavier  than  those  of  gold. 

It  is  not  in  the  plots,  it  is  in  the  inevitable  character  of 
the  Northern  States,  that  the  South  sees  her  danger.  And 
the  struggle  is  between  these  two  ideas.  Our  fathers,  as 
I  said,  thought  they  could  safely  be  left,  one  to  outgrow  the 
other.  They  took  gunpowder  and  a  lighted  match,  forced 
them  into  a  stalwart  cannon,  screwed  down  the  muzzle, 
and  thought  they  could  secure  peace.  But  it  has  resulted 
differently  ;  their  cannon  has  exploded,  and  we  stand  among 
fragments. 

Now  some  Republicans  and  some  Democrats  —  not  But 
ler  and  Bryant  and  Cochrane  and  Cameron,  not  Boutwell 
and  Bancroft  and  Dickinson,  and  others  — but  the  old  set 
—  the  old  set  say  to  the  Republicans,  "  Lay  the  pieces  care 
fully  together  in  their  places ;  put  the  gunpowder  and  the 
match  in  again,  say  the  Constitution  backward  instead  of 
your  prayers,  and  there  will  never  be  another  rebellion  !  " 
I  doubt  it.  It  seems  to  me  that  like  causes  will  produce 
like  effects.  If  the  reason  of  the  war  is  because  we  are 
two  nations,  then  the  cure  must  be  to  make  us  one  nation, 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  429 

to  remove  that  cause  which  divides  us,  to  make  our  insti 
tutions  homogeneous.  If  it  were  possible  to  subjugate  the 
South,  and  leave  slavery  just  as  it  is,  where  is  the  security 
that  we  should  not  have  another  war  in  ten  years  ?  In 
deed,  such  a  course  invites  another  war,  whenever  dema 
gogues  please.  I  believe  the  policy  of  reconstruction  is 
impossible.  And  if  it  were  possible,  it  would  be  the  great 
est  mistake  that  Northern  men  could  commit.  [Cheers.] 
I  will  not  stop  to  remind  you  that,  standing  as  we  do  to 
day,  with  the  full  constitutional  right  to  abolish  slavery,  — 
a  right  Southern  treason  has  just  given  us,  —  a  right,  the 
use  of  which  is  enjoined  by  the  sternest  necessity,  —  if, 
after  that,  the  North  goes  back  to  the  Constitution  of  '89, 
she  assumes,  a  second  time,  afresh,  unnecessarily,  a  crimi 
nal  responsibility  for  slavery.  Hereafter  no  old  excuse 
will  avail  us.  A  second  time,  with  open  eyes,  against  our 
highest  interest,  we  clasp  bloody  hands  with  tyrants  to 
uphold  an  acknowledged  sin,  whose  fell  evil  we  have  fully 
proved. 

But  that  aside,  peace  with  an  unchanged  Constitution 
would  leave  us  to  stand  like  Mexico.  States  married,  not 
matched ;  chained  together,  not  melted  into  one  ;  foreign 
nations  aware  of  our  hostility,  and  interfering  to  embroil, 
rob,  and  control  us.  We  should  be  what  Greece  was 
under  the  intrigues  of  Philip,  and  Germany  when  Louis 
XIV.  was  in  fact  her  dictator.  We  may  see  our  likeness 
in  Austria,  every  fretful  province  an  addition  of  weakness  ; 
in  Italy,  twenty  years  ago,  a  leash  of  angry  hounds.  A 
Union  with  unwilling  and  subjugated  States,  smarting 
with  defeat,  and  yet  holding  the  powerful  and  dangerous 
element  of  slavery  in  it,  and  an  army  disbanded  into 
laborers,  food  for  constant  disturbance,  would  be  a  stand 
ing  invitation  to  France  and  England  to  insult  and  dictate, 
to  thwart  our  policy,  demand  changes  in  our  laws,  and 
trample  on  us  continually. 


430  THE   WAR   FOR  THE   UNION. 

Reconstruction  is  but  another  name  for  the  submission 
of  the  North.  It  is  her  subjection  under  a  mask.  It  is 
nothing  but  the  confession  of  defeat.  Every  merchant,  in 
such  a  case,  puts  everything  he  has  at  the  bidding  of  Wig- 
fall  and  Toombs  in  every  cross-road  bar-room  at  the 
South.  For,  you  see,  never  till  now  did  anybody  but  a 
few  Abolitionists  believe  that  this  nation  could  be  mar 
shalled  one  section  against  the  other  in  arms.  But  the 
secret  is  out.  The  weak  point  is  discovered.  Why  does 
the  London  press  lecture  us  like  a  schoolmaster  his  seven- 
year-old  boy  ?  Why  does  England  use  a  tone  such  as 
she  has  not  used  for  half  a  century  to  any  power  ?  Be 
cause  she  knows  us  as  she  knows  Mexico,  as  all  Europe 
knows  Austria,  —  that  we  have  the  cancer  concealed  in 
our  very  vitals.  Slavery,  left  where  it  is,  after  having 
created  such  a  war  as  this,  would  leave  our  commerce  and 
all  our  foreign  relations  at  the  mercy  of  any  Keitt,  Wig- 
fall,  Wise,  or  Toombs.  Any  demagogue  has  only  to  stir 
up  a  proslavery  crusade,  point  back  to  the  safe  experiment 
of  1861,  and  lash  the  passions  of  the  aristocrats,  to  cover 
the  sea  with  privateers,  put  in  jeopardy  the  trade  of 
twenty  States,  plunge  the  country  into  millions  of  debt, 
send  our  stocks  down  fifty  per  cent,  and  cost  thousands 
of  lives.  Reconstruction  is  but  making  chronic  what  now 
is  transient.  What  that  is,  this  week  shows.  What  that 
is,  we  learn  from  the  tone  England  dares  to  assume 
toward  this  divided  republic.  I  do  not  believe  recon 
struction  possible.  I  do  not  believe  the  Cabinet  intend  it. 
True,  I  should  care  little  if  they  did,  since  I  believe  the 
administration  can  no  more  resist  the  progress  of  events, 
than  a  spear  of  grass  can  retard  the  step  of  an  avalanche. 
But  if  they  do,  allow  me  to  say,  for  one,  that  every  dollar 
spent  in  this  war  is  worse  than  wasted,  every  life  lost  is  a 
public  murder,  and  that  any  statesman  who  leads  these 
States  back  to  reconstruction  will  be  damned  to  an  infamy 


THE  WAR   FOR  THE   UNION.  431 

compared  with  which  Arnold  was  a  saint  and  James  Bu 
chanan  a  public  benefactor.  [Slight  disturbance  in  the 
rear  part  of  the  hall ;  cries  of  "  Put  him  out !  "  etc.]  No, 
do  not  put  him  out ;  his  is  the  very  mind  I  wish  to  reach. 
I  said  reconstruction  is  not  possible.  I  do  not  believe  it  is, 
for  this  reason ;  the  moment  these  States  begin  to  appear 
victorious,  the  moment  our  armies  do  anything  that 
evinces  final  success,  the  wily  statesmanship  and  uncon 
querable  hate  of  the  South  will  write  "  Emancipation  "  on 
her  banner,  and  welcome  the  protectorate  of  a  European 
power.  And  if  you  read  the  European  papers  of  to-day, 
you  need  not  doubt  that  she  will  have  it.  Intelligent 
men  agree  that  the  North  stands  better  with  Palmerston 
for  minister,  than  she  would  with  any  minister  likely  to 
succeed  him.  And  who  is  Palmerston  ?  While  he  was 
Foreign  Secretary,  from  1848  to  1851,  the  British  press 
ridiculed  every  effort  of  the  French  Republicans,  — 
sneered  at  Cavaignac  and  Ledru  Rollin,  Lamartine  and 
Hugo,  —  while  they  cheered  Napoleon  on  to  his  usurpa 
tion  ;  and  Lord  Normanby,  then  Minister  at  Paris,  early 
in  December,  while  Napoleon's  hand  was  still  wet  with 
the  best  blood  of  France,  congratulated  the  despot  on  his 
victory  over  the  Reds,  applying  to  the  friends  of  Liberty 
the  worst  epithet  that  an  Englishman  knows.  This  last 
outrage  lost  Palmerston  his  place  ;  but  he  rules  to-day,  — 
though  rebuked,  not  changed. 

The  value  of  the  English  news  this  week  is  the  indica 
tion  of  the  nation's  mind.  No  one  doubts  now,  that,  should 
the  South  emancipate,  England  would  make  haste  to  recog 
nize  and  help  her.  In  ordinary  times,  the  government  and 
aristocracy  of  England  dread  American  example.  They 
may  well  admire  and  envy  the  strength  of  our  government, 
when,  instead  of  England's  impressment  and  pinched  levies, 
patriotism  marshals  six  hundred  thousand  volunteers  in  six 
months.  The  English  merchant  is  jealous  of  our  growth  ; 


432  THE   WAR   FOR   THE  UNION. 

only  the  liberal  middle  classes  really  sympathize  with  us. 
When  the  two  other  classes  are  divided,  this  middle  class 
rules.  But  now  Herod  and  Pilate  are  agreed.  The  aris 
tocrat,  who  usually  despises  a  trader,  whether  of  Manchester 
or  Liverpool,  as  the  South  does  a  negro,  now  is  Secession 
ist  from  sympathy,  as  the  trader  is  from  interest.  Such 
a  union  no  middle  class  can  checkmate.  The  only  danger 
of  war  with  England  is,  that,  as  soon  as  England  declared 
war  with  us,  she  would  recognize  the  Southern  Confed 
eracy  immediately,  just  as  she  stands,  slavery  and  all,  as  a 
military  measure.  As  such,  in  the  heat  of  passion,  in  the 
smoke  of  war,  the  English  people,  all  of  them,  would  allow 
such  a  recognition  even  of  a  slaveholding  empire.  War 
with  England  insures  disunion.  When  England  declares 
war,  she  gives  slavery  a  fresh  lease  of  fifty  years.  Even 
if  we  have  no  war  with  England,  let  another  eight  or  ten 
months  be  as  little  successful  as  the  last,  and  Europe  will 
acknowledge  the  Southern  Confederacy,  slavery  and  all, 
as  a  matter  of  course.  Further,  any  approach  toward 
victory  on  our  part,  without  freeing  the  slave,  gives  him 
free  to  Davis.  So  far,  the  South  is  sure  to  succeed,  either 
by  victory  or  defeat,  unless  we  anticipate  her.  Indeed, 
the  only  way,  the  only  sure  way,  to  break  this  Union,  is 
to  try  to  save  it  by  protecting  slavery.  "  Every  moment 
lost,"  as  Napoleon  said,  "  is  an  opportunity  for  misfortune." 
Unless  we  emancipate  the  slave,  we  shall  never  conquer 
the  South  without  her  trying  emancipation.  Every  South 
erner,  from  Toombs  up  to  Fremont,  has  acknowledged  it. 
Do  you  suppose  that  Davis  and  Beauregard,  and  the  rest, 
mean  to  be  exiles,  wandering  contemned  in  every  great 
city  of  Europe,  in  order  that  they  may  maintain  slavery 
and  the  Constitution  of  '89?  They,  like  ourselves,  will 
throw  everything  overboard  before  they  will  submit  to 
defeat,  —  defeat  from  Yankees.  I  do  not  believe,  there 
fore,  that  reconciliation  is  possible,  nor  do  I  believe  the 


THE   WAR   FOR  THE   UNION.  433 

Cabinet  have  any  such  hopes.  Indeed,  I  do  not  know 
where  you  will  find  the  evidence  of  any  purpose  in  the 
administration  at  Washington.  [Hisses,  cheers,  and  laugh 
ter.]  If  we  look  to  the  West,  if  we  look  to  the  Potomac, 
what  is  the  policy  ?  If,  on  the  Potomac,  with  the  aid  of 
twenty  Governors,  you  assemble  an  army,  and  do  nothing 
but  return  fugitive  slaves,  that  proves  you  competent  and 
efficient.  If,  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  unaided,  the 
magic  of  your  presence  summons  an  army  into  existence, 
and  you  drive  your  enemy  before  you  a  hundred  miles 
farther  than  your  second  in  command  thought  it  possible 
for  you  to  advance,  that  proves  you  incompetent,  and 
entitles  your  second  in  command  to  succeed  you.  [Tre 
mendous  applause,  and  three  cheers  for  Fremont.] 

Looking  in  another  direction,  you  see  the  government 
announcing  a  policy  in  South  Carolina.  What  is  it? 
Well,  Mr.  Secretary  Cameron  says  to  the  general  in 
command  there  :  "  You  are  to  welcome  into  your  camp  all 
comers  ;  you  are  to  organize  them  into  squads  and  com 
panies  ;  use  them  any  way  you  please  ;  —  but  there  is  to 
be  no  general  arming."  That  is  a  very  significant  excep 
tion.  The  hint  is  broad  enough  for  the  dullest  brain. 
In  one  of  Charles  Reade's  novels,  the  heroine  flies  away 
to  hide  from  the  hero,  announcing  that  she  never  shall 
see  him  again.  Her  letter  says :  "  I  will  never  see  you 
again,  David.  You,  of  course,  won't  come  to  see  me 
at  my  old  nurse's  dear  little  cottage  [laughter],  be 
tween  eleven  in  the  morning  and  four  in  the  afternoon, 
because  I  sha'n't  see  you."  [Laughter.]  So  Mr.  Cam 
eron  says  there  is  to  be  no  general  arming,  but  I  suppose 
there  is  to  be  a  very  particular  arming.  [Laughter.]  But 
he  goes  on  to  add :  "  This  is  no  greater  interference  with 
the  institutions  of  South  Carolina  than  is  necessary, — 
than  the  war  will  cure."  Does  he  mean  he  will  give  the 
slaves  back  when  the  war  is  over  ?  I  don't  know.  All  I 

28 


434  THE  WAR   FOR  THE   UNION. 

know  is,  that  the  Port  Royal  expedition  proved  one  thing, 
—  it  laid  forever  that  ghost  of  an  argument,  that  the  blacks 
loved  their  masters,  —  it  settled  forever  the  question 
whether  the  blacks  were  with  us  or  with  the  South.  My 
opinion  is,  that  the  blacks  are  the  key  of  our  position.  [A 
Voice,  "  That  is  it."]  He  that  gets  them  wins,  and  he 
that  loses  them  goes  to  the  wrall.  [Applause.]  Port 
Royal  settled  one  thing,  —  the  blacks  are  with  us,  and  not 
with  the  South.  At  present  they  are  the  only  Unionists. 
I  know  nothing  more  touching  in  history,  nothing  that  art 
will  immortalize  and  poetry  dwell  upon  more  fondly,  —  1 
know  no  tribute  to  the  Stars  and  Stripes  more  impressive 
than  that  incident  of  the  blacks  coming  to  the  water-side 
with  their  little  bundles,  in  that  simple  faith  which  had 
endured  through  the  long  night  of  so  many  bitter  years. 
They  preferred  to  be  shot  rather  than  driven  from  the 
sight  of  that  banner  they  had  so  long  prayed  to  see.  And 
if  that  was  the  result  when  nothing  but  General  Sherman's 
equivocal  proclamation  was  landed  on  the  Carolinas,  what 
should  we  have  seen  if  there  had  been  eighteen  thousand 
veterans  with  Fremont,  the  statesman-soldier  of  this  war, 
at  their  head  [loud  applause],  and  over  them  the  Stars 
and  Stripes,  gorgeous  with  the  motto,  "  Freedom  for  all ! 
freedom  forever!  "  If  that  had  gone  before  them,  in  my 
opinion  they  would  have  marched  across  the  Carolinas,  and 
joined  Brownlow  in  East  Tennessee.  [Applause.]  The 
bulwark  on  each  side  of  them  would  have  been  one  hun 
dred  thousand  grateful  blacks  ;  they  would  have  cut  this 
rebellion  in  halves,  and  while  our  fleets  fired  salutes  across 
New  Orleans,  Beauregard  would  have  been  ground  to 
powder  between  the  upper  millstone  of  McClellan  and 
the  lower  of  a  quarter-million  of  blacks  rising  to  greet  the 
Stars  and  Stripes.  [Great  cheering.]  McClellan  may 
drill  a  better  army,  —  more  perfect  soldiers.  He  will 
never  marshal  a  stronger  force  than  those  grateful  thou- 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE    UNION.  435 

sands.  That  is  the  way  to  save  insurrection.  He  is  an 
enemy  to  civil  liberty,  the  worst  enemy  to  his  own  land, 
who  asks  for  such  delay  or  perversion  of  government 
policy  as  is  sure  to  result  in  insurrection.  Our  duty  is  to 
save  these  four  millions  of  blacks  from  their  own  passions, 
from  their  own  confusion,  and  eight  millions  of  whites 
from  the  consequences  of  it.  ["  Hear,  hear!  "J  And  in 
order  to  do  it,  we  nineteen  millions  of  educated,  Christian 
Americans  are  not  to  wait  for  the  will  or  the  wisdom  of  a 
single  man,  —  we  are  not  to  wait  for  Fremont  or  McClel- 
lan :  the  government  is  our  dictator.  It  might  do  for 
Rome,  a  herd  of  beggars  and  soldiers,  kept  quiet  only  by 
the  weight  of  despotism,  —  it  might  do  for  Rome,  in  mo 
ments  of  danger,  to  hurl  all  responsibility  into  the  hands 
of  a  dictator.  But  for  us,  educated,  thoughtful  men,  with 
institutions  modelled  and  matured  by  the  experience  of  two 
hundred  years,  —  it  is  not  for  us  to  evade  responsibility  by 
deferring  to  a  single  man.  I  demand  of  the  government  a 
policy.  I  demand  of  the  government  to  show  the  doubt 
ing  infidels  of  Europe  that  democracy  is  not  only  strong 
enough  for  the  trial,  but  that  she  breeds  men  with  brains 
large  enough  to  comprehend  the  hour,  and  wills  hot  enough 
to  fuse  the  purpose  of  nineteen  millions  of  people  into  one 
decisive  blow  for  safety  and  for  Union.  [Cheers.]  You 
will  ask  me  how  it  is  to  be  done.  I  would  have  it  done 
by  Congress.  We  have  the  power. 

When  Congress  declares  war,  says  John  Quincy  Adams, 
Congress  has  all  the  powers  incident  to  carrying  on  war.* 

*  "  Sir,  in  the  authority  given  to  Congress  by  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  to  declare  war,  all  the  powers  incidental  to  war  are,  by  neces 
sary  implication,  conferred  upon  the  government  of  the  United  States 

There  are  two  classes  of  powers  vested  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  in  their  Congress  and  executive  government :  the  powers  to  be  exe 
cuted  in  time  of  peace  and  the  powers  incident  to  war.  That  the  powers  of 
peace  are  limited  by  provisions  within  the  body  of  the  Constitution  itself ; 
but  that  the  powers  of  war  are  limited  and  regulated  only  by  the  laws  and 


436  THE   WAR  FOR   THE   UNION. 

It  is  not  an  unconstitutional  power,  —  it  is  a  power  con 
ferred  by  the  Constitution  ;  but  the  moment  it  comes  into 
play  it  rises  beyond  the  limit  of  constitutional  checks.  I 
know  it  is  a  grave  power,  this  trusting  the  government 
with  despotism.  But  what  is  the  use  of  government,  ex 
cept  just  to  help  us  in  critical  times  ?  All  the  checks  and 
ingenuity  of  our  institutions  are  arranged  to  secure  for  us 
men  wise  and  able  enough  to  be  trusted  with  grave  pow 
ers,  —  bold  enough  to  use  them  when  the  times  require. 
Lancets  and  knives  are  dangerous  instruments.  The  use 
of  surgeons  is,  that,  when  lancets  are  needed,  somebody 
may  know  how  to  use  them,  and  save  life.  One  great 
merit  of  democratic  institutions  is,  that,  resting  as  they 
must  on  educated  masses,  the  government  may  safely  be 
trusted,  in  a  great  emergency,  with  despotic  power,  with 
out  fear  of  harm,  or  of  wrecking  the  state.  No  other 
form  of  government  can  venture  such  confidence  without 

usages  of  nations,  and  are  subject  to  no  other  limitation I  do  not 

admit  that  there  is,  even  among  the  peace  powers  of  Congress,  no  such  au 
thority  ;  but  in  war,  there  are  many  ways  by  which  Congress  not  only  have  the 
authority,  but  are  bound  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  States, 

When  the  Southern  States  are  the  battle-field  between  Slavery  and 

Emancipation,  Congress  may  sustain  the  institution  by  war,  or  perhaps 
abolish  it  by  treaties  of  peace  ;  and  they  will  riot  only  possess  the  constitu 
tional  power  so  to  interfere,  but  they  ivill  be  bound  in  duty  to  do  it,  by  the  ex 
press  provisions  of  the  Constitution  itself.  From  the  instant  the  slaveholding 
States  become  the  theatre  of  a  war,  civil,  servile,  or  foreign,  from  that  instant 
the  war  powers  of  Congress  extend  to  interference  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in 

every  way  by  ichich  it  can  be  interfered  with With  a  call  to  keep  down 

slaves,  in  an  insurrection  and  a  civil  war,  comes  a  full  and  plenary  power  to 
this  House  and  to  the  Senate  over  the  whole  subject.  It  is  a  war  power. 
Whether  it  be  a  war  of  invasion  or  a  war  of  insurrection,  Congress  has 
power  to  carry  on  the  war,  and  must  carry  it  on,  according  to  the  laws  of 
war-:  and  by  the  laws  of  war  an  invaded  country  has  all  its  laws  and  muni 
cipal  institutions  swept  by  the  board,  and  martial  law  takes  the  place  of  them 
This  power  in  Congress  has,  perhaps,  never  been  called  into  exercise  under  the 
present  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  —  Speeches  of  John  Quincy  Adamt 
in  the  U.  S.  House  of  Representatives,  1836  -  1842. 


THE  WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  437 

risk  of  national  ruin.  Doubtless  the  war  power  is  a  very 
grave  power  ;  so  are  some  ordinary  peace  powers.  I  will 
not  cite  extreme  cases,  —  Louisiana  and  Texas.  We  ob 
tained  the  first  by  treaty,  the  second  by  joint  resolutions  ; 
each  case  an  exercise  of  power  as  grave  and  despotic  as 
the  abolition  of  slavery  would  be,  and,  unlike  that,  plainly 
unconstitutional,  —  one  which  nothing  but  stern  necessity 
and  subsequent  acquiescence  by  the  nation  could  make 
valid.  Let  me  remind  you  that  seventy  years'  practice 
has  incorporated  it  as  a  principle  in  our  constitutional  law, 
that  what  the  necessity  of  the  hour  demands,  and  the  con 
tinued  assent  of  the  people  ratifies,  is  law.  Slavery  has 
established  that  rule.  We  might  surely  use  it  in  the  cause 
of  justice.  But  I  will  cite  an  unquestionable  precedent. 
It  was  a  grave  power,  in  1807,  in  time  of  peace,  when 
Congress  abolished  commerce  ;  when,  by  the  embargo  of 
Jefferson,  no  ship  could  quit  New  York  or  Boston,  and 
Congress  set  no  limit  to  the  prohibition.  It  annihilated 
commerce.  New  England  asked,  "  Is  it  constitutional  ?  " 
The  Supreme  Court  said,  "  Yes."  New  England  sat  down 
and  starved.  Her  wharves  were-  worthless,  her  ships  rot 
ted,  her  merchants  beggared.  She  asked  no  compensa 
tion.  The  powers  of  Congress  carried  bankruptcy  from 
New  Haven  to  Portland ;  but  the  Supreme  Court  said, 
"  It  is  legal,"  and  New  England  bowed  her  head.  We 
commend  the  same  cup  to  the  Carolinas  to-day.  We  say 
to  them  that,  in  order  to  save  the  government,  there  re 
sides  somewhere  despotism.  It  is  in  the  war  powers  of 
Congress.  That  despotism  can  change  the  social  arrange 
ments  of  the  Southern  States,  and  has  a  right  to  do  it. 
Every  man  of  you  who  speaks  of  the  emancipation  of  the 
negroes  allows  it  would  be  decisive  if  it  were  used.  You 
allow  thkt,  when  it  is  a  military  necessity,  we  may  use  it. 
What  I  claim  is,  in  honor  of  our  institutions,  that  we  are 
not  put  to  wait  for  the  wisdom  or  the  courage  of  a 


438  THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION. 

general.  Our  fathers  left  us  with  no  such  miserable  plan 
of  government.  They  gave  us  a  government  with  the 
power,  in  such  times  as  these,  of  doing  something  that 
would  save  the  helm  of  state  in  the  hands  of  its  citizens. 
[Cheers.]  We  could  cede  the  Carolinas  ;  I  have  some 
times  wished  we  could  shovel  them  into  the  Atlantic. 
[Applause  and  laughter.]  We  can  cede  a  State.  We 
can  do  anything  for  the  time  being ;  and  no  theory  of  gov 
ernment  can  deny  its  power  to  make  the  most  unlimited 
change.  The  only  alternative  is  this  :  Do  you  prefer  the 
despotism  of  your  own  citizens  or  of  foreigners  ?  That  is 
the  only  question  in  war.  [Cheers.]  In  peace  no  man 
may  be  deprived  of  his  life  but  "  by  the  judgment  of  his 
peers,  or  the  law  of  the  land."  To  touch  life,  you  must 
have  a  grand  jury  to  present,  a  petit  jury  to  indict,  a  judge 
to  condemn,  and  a  sheriff  to  execute.  That  is  constitu 
tional,  the  necessary  and  invaluable  bulwark  of  liberty,  in 
peace.  But  in  war  the  government  bids  Sigel  shoot  Lee, 
and  the  German  is  at  once  grand  jury,  petit  jury,  judge, 
and  executioner.  That,  too,  is  constitutional,  necessary, 
and  invaluable,  protecting  a  nation's  rights  and  life. 

Now  this  government,  which  abolishes  my  right  of 
habeas  corpus,  —  which  strikes  down,  because  it  is  neces 
sary,  every  Saxon  bulwark  of  liberty,  —  which  proclaims 
martial  law,  and  holds  every  dollar  and  every  man  at  the 
will  of  the  Cabinet,  —  do  you  turn  round  and  tell  me  that 
this  same  government  has  no  rightful  power  to  break  the 
cobweb  —  it  is  but  a  cobweb  —  which  binds  a  slave  to 
his  master,  —  to  stretch  its  hands  across  the  Potomac,  and 
root  up  the  evil  which,  for  seventy  years,  has  troubled  its 
peace,  and  now  culminates  in  rebellion  ?  I  maintain, 
therefore,  the  power  of  the  government  itself  to  inaugu 
rate  such  a  policy  ;  and  I  say,  in  order  to  save  the  Union, 
do  justice  to  the  black.  [Applause.] 

I  would  claim  of  Congress  —  in  the  exact  language  of 


THE   WAR  FOB  THE   UNION.  439 

Adams,  of  the  "  government "  —  a  solemn  act  abolishing 
slavery  throughout  the  Union,  securing  compensation  to 
loyal  slaveholders.  As  the  Constitution  forbids  the  States 
to  make  and  allow  nobles,  I  would  now,  by  equal  au 
thority,  forbid  them  to  make  slaves  or  allow  slaveholders. 
This  has  been  the  usual  course  at  such  times.  Nations, 
convulsed  and  broken  by  too  powerful  elements  or  insti 
tutions,  have  used  the  first  moment  of  assured  power  — 
the  first  moment  that  they  clearly  saw  and  fully  appreci 
ated  the  evil  —  to  cut  up  the  dangerous  tree  by  the  roots. 
So  France  expelled  the  Jesuits,  arid  the  Middle  Ages  the 
Templars.  So  England,  in  her  great  rebellion,  abolished 
nobility  and  the  Established  Church  ;  and  the  French 
Revolution  did  the  same,  and  finally  gave  to  each  child  an 
equal  share  in  his  deceased  father's  lands.  For  the  same 
purpose,  England,  in  1745,  abolished  clanship  in  Scotland, 
the  root  of  the  Stuart  faction  ;  and  we,  in  '76,  abolished 
nobles  and  all  tenure  of  estates  savoring  of  privileged 
classes.  Such  a  measure  supplies  the  South  just  what  she 
needs, — capital.  That  sum  which  the  North  gives  the 
loyal  slaveholder,  not  as  acknowledging  his  property  in 
the  slave,  but  a  measure  of  conciliation,  —  perhaps  an 
acknowledgment  of  its  share  of  the  guilt,  —  will  call  mills, 
ships,  agriculture,  into  being.  The  free  negro  will  redeem 
to  use  lands  never  touched,  whose  fertility  laughs  Illinois 
to  scorn,  and  finds  no  rival  but  Egypt.  And  remember, 
besides,  as  Montesquieu  says,  "  The  yield  of  land  depends 
less  on  its  fertility  than  on  the  freedom  of  its  inhabitants." 
Such  a  measure  binds  the  negro  to  us  by  the  indissoluble 
tie  of  gratitude  ;  the  loyal  slaveholder,  by  strong  self-inter 
est,  —  our  bonds  are  all  his  property  ;  the  other  whites, 
hy  prosperity,  —  they  are  lifted  in  the  scale  of  civiliza 
tion  and  activity,  educated  and  enriched.  Our  insti 
tutions  are  then  homogeneous.  We  grapple  the  Union 
together  with  hooks  of  steel,  —  make  it  as  lasting  as  the 
granite  which  underlies  the  continent. 


440  THE   WAR  FOR   THE   UNION. 

People  may  say  this  is  a  strange  language  for  me,  —  a 
Disunionist.  Well,  I  was  a  Disunionist,  sincerely,  for 
twenty  years.  I  did  hate  the  Union,  when  Union  meant 
lies  in  the  pulpit  and  mobs  in  the  street,  when  Union 
meant  making  white  men  hypocrites  and  black  men  slaves. 
[Cheers.]  I  did  prefer  purity  to  peace,  —  I  acknowledge 
it.  The  child  of  six  generations  of  Puritans,  knowing  well 
the  value  of  union,  I  did  prefer  disunion  to  being  the 
accomplice  of  tyrants.  But  now,  when  I  see  what  the 
Union  must  mean  in  order  to  last,  when  I  see  that  you 
cannot  have  union  without  meaning  justice,  and  when 
I  see  twenty  millions  of  people,  with  a  current  as  swift 
and  as  inevitable  as  Niagara,  determined  that  this  Union 
shall  mean  justice,  why  should  I  object  to  it  ?  I  endeav 
ored  honestly,  and  am  not  ashamed  of  it,  to  take  nineteen 
States  out  of  this  Union,  and  consecrate  them  to  liberty, 
and  twenty  millions  of  people  answer  me  back,  "  We  like 
your  motto,  only  we  mean  to  keep  thirty-four  States  under 
it."  Do  you  suppose  I  am  not  Yankee  enough  to  buy 
union  when  I  can  have  it  at  a  fair  price  ?  I  know  the 
value  of  union  ;  and  the  reason  why  I  claim  that  Caro 
lina  has  no  right  to  secede  is  this  :  we  are  not  a  partner 
ship,  we  are  a  marriage,  and  we  have  done  a  great  many 
things  since  we  were  married  in  1789  which  render  it 
unjust  for  a  State  to  exercise  the  right  of  revolution  on 
any  ground  now  alleged.  I  admit  the  right.  I  acknowl 
edge  the  great  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence,  that  a  state  exists  for  the  liberty  and  happiness  of 
the  people,  that  these  are  the  ends  of  government,  and 
that,  when  government  ceases  to  promote  those  ends,  the 
people  have  a  right  to  remodel  their  institutions.  I 
acknowledge  the  right  of  revolution  in  South  Carolina, 
but  at  the  same  time  I  acknowledge  that  right  of  revolu 
tion  only  when  government  has  ceased  to  promote  those 
endsA  Now  we  have  been  married  for  seventy  years. 

-7T 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  441 

We  have  bought  Florida.  We  rounded  the  Union  to  the 
Gulf.  We  bought  the  Mississippi  for  commercial  purposes. 
We  stole  Texas  for  slave  purposes.  Great  commercial 
interests,  great  interests  of  peace,  have  been  subserved  by 
rounding  the  Union  into  a  perfect  shape  ;  and  the  money 
and  sacrifices  of  two  generations  have  been  given  for  this 
purpose.  To  break  up  that  Union  now,  is  to  defraud  us 
of  mutual  advantages  relating  to  peace,  trade,  national  se 
curity,  which  cannot  survive  disunion.  The  right  of  rev 
olution  is  not  matter  of  caprice.  "  Governments  long 
established,"  says  our  Declaration  of  Independence,  "  are 
not  to  be  changed  for  light  and  transient  causes."  When 
so  many  important  interests  and  benefits,  in  their  nature 
indivisible  and  which  disunion  destroys,  have  been  secured 
by  common  toils  and  cost,  the  South  must  vindicate  her 
revolution  by  showing  that  our  government  has  become 
destructive  of  its  proper  ends,  else  the  right  of  revolution 
does  not  exist.  Why  did  we  steal  Texas  ?  Why  have 
we  helped  the  South  to  strengthen  herself?  Because  she 
said  that  slavery  within  the  girdle  of  the  Constitution 
would  die  out  through  the  influence  of  natural  principles. 
She  said :  "  We  acknowledge  it  to  be  an  evil ;  but  at  the 
same  time  it  will  end  by  the  spread  of  free  principles  and 
the  influence  of  free  institutions."  And  the  North  said: 
"  Yes  ;  we  will  give  you  privileges  on  that  account,  and 
we  will  return  your  slaves  for  you."  Every  slave  sent 
back  from  a  Northern  State  is  a  fresh  oath  of  the  South 
that  she  would  not  secede.  Our  fathers  trusted  to  the 
promise  that  this  race  should  be  left  under  the  influence 
of  the  Union,  until,  in  the  maturity  of  time,  the  day  should 
arrive  when  they  would  be  lifted  into  the  sunlight  of  God's 
equality.  I  claim  it  of  South  Carolina.  By  virtue  of  that 
pledge  she  took  Boston  and  put  a  rope  round  her  neck  in 
that  infamous  compromise  which  consigned  to  slavery  An 
thony  Burns.  I  demand  the  fulfilment  on  her  part  even  of 


442  THE  WAR   FOR  THE   UNION. 

that  infamous  pledge.  Until  South  Carolina  allows  me  a 
the  influence  that  nineteen  millions  of  Yankee  lips,  asking 
infinite  questions,  have  upon  the  welfare  of  those  four  mil 
lions  of  bondsmen,  I  deny  her  right  to  secede.  [Applause.] 
Seventy  years  has  the  Union  postponed  the  negro.  For 
seventy  years  has  he  been  beguiled  with  the  promise,  as 
she  erected  one  bulwark  after  another  around  slavery, 
that  he  should  have  the  influence  of  our  common  institu 
tions.  I  claim  it  to-day.  Never,  with  my  consent,  while 
the  North  thinks  that  the  Union  can  or  shall  mean  justice, 
shall  those  four  hundred  thousand  South  Carolina  slaves 
go  beyond  the  influence  of  Boston  ideas.  That  is  my 
strong  reason  for  clinging  to  the  Union.  This  is  also  one 
main  reason  why,  unless  upon  most  imperative  and  mani 
fest  grounds  of  need  and  right,  South  Carolina  has  no 
right  of  revolution  ;  none  till  she  fulfils  her  promise  in 
this  respect. 

I  know  how  we  stand  to-day,  with  the  frowning  cannon 
of  the  English  fleet  ready  to  be  thrust  out  of  the  port-holes 
against  us.  But  I  can  answer  England  with  a  better  an 
swer  than  William  H.  Seward  can  write.  I  can  answer 
her  with  a  more  statesmanlike  paper  than  Simon  Cameron 
can  indite.  I  would  answer  her  with  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
floating  over  Charleston  and  New  Orleans,  and  the  itiner 
ant  Cabinet  of  Richmond  packing  up  archives  and  wearing- 
apparel  to  ride  back  to  Montgomery.  There  is  one  thing, 
and  only  one,  which  John  Bull  respects,  and  that  is  suc 
cess.  It  is  not  for  us  to  give  counsel  to  the  government 
on  points  of  diplomatic  propriety  ;  but  I  suppose  we  may 
express  our  opinion ;  and  my  opinion  is,  that,  if  I  were  the 
President  of  these  thirty-four  States,  while  I  was,  I  should 
want  Mason  and  Slidell  to  stay  with  me.  I  say,  then, 
first,  as  a  matter  of  justice  to  the  slave,  we  owe  it  to  him ; 
the  day  of  his  deliverance  has  come.  The  long  promise 
of  seventy  years  is  to  be  fulfilled.  The  South  draws  back 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION. 

from  the  pledge.  The  North  is  bound,  in  honor  of  the 
memory  of  her  fathers,  to  demand  its  exact  fulfilment,  and 
in  order  to  save  this  Union,  which  now  means  justice  and 
peace,  to  recognize  the  rights  of  four  millions  of  its  vic 
tims.  This  is  the  dictate  of  justice ;  — justice,  which  at 
this  hour  is  craftier  than  Seward,  more  statesmanlike  than 
Cameron ;  justice,  which  appeals  from  the  cabinets  of 
Europe  to  the  people  ;  justice,  which  abases  the  proud 
and  lifts  up  the  humble  ;  justice,  which  disarms  England, 
saves  the  slaves  from  insurrection,  and  sends  home  the 
Confederate  army  of  the  Potomac  to  guard  its  own 
hearths ;  justice,  which  gives  us  four  millions  of  friends, 
spies,  soldiers  in  the  enemy's  country,  planted  each  one 
at  their  very  hearth-sides  ;  justice,  which  inscribes  every 
cannon  with  "  Holiness  to  the  Lord  !  "  and  puts  a  North 
ern  heart  behind  every  musket  ;  justice,  which  means 
victory  now  and  peace  forever.  To  all  cry  of  demagogues 
asking  for  boldness,  I  respond  withj^e^i^LiiL^ijIustice, 
immediate,  absolute  justice  !/  And  if  I  dared  to  descend 
to  a  lower  level,  I  should  say  to  the  merchants  of  this 
metropolis,  Demand  of  the  government  a  speedy  settle 
ment  of  this  question.  Every  hour  of  delay  is  big  with 
risk.  Remember,  as  Governor  Boutwell  suggests,  that 
our  present  financial  prosperity  comes  because  we  have 
corn  to  export  in  place  of  cotton  ;  and  that  another  year, 
should  Europe  have  a  good  harvest  and  we  an  ordinary 
one,  while  an  inflated  currency  tempts  extravagance  and 
large  imports,  general  bankruptcy  stares  us  in  the  face. 
Do  you  love  the  Union  ?  Do  you  really  think  that  on  thf* 
other  side  of  the  Potomac  are  the  natural  brothers  and 
customers  of  the  manufacturing  ingenuity  of  the  North  ? 
I  tell  you,  certain  as  fate,  God  has  written  the  safety  of 
that  relation  in  the  same  scroll  with  justice  to  the  negro. 
The  hour  strikes.  You  may  win  him  to  your  side  ;  you 
may  anticipate  the  South  ;  you  may  save  twelve  millions 


444  THE   WAR  FOR  THE  UNION. 

of  customers.  Delay  it,  let  God  grant  McClellan  victory, 
let  God  grant  the  Stars  and  Stripes  over  New  Orleans, 
and  it  is  too  late. 

Jeff  Davis  will  then  summon  that  same  element  to  his 
side,  and  twelve  millions  of  customers  are  added  to  Lan 
cashire  and  Lyons.  Then  commences  a  war  of  tariffs, 
embittered  by  that  other  war  of  angered  nationalities, 
which  are  to  hand  this  and  the  other  Confederacy  down 
for  twenty-five  or  thirty  years,  divided,  weakened,  and 
bloody  with  intestine  struggle.  And  what  will  be  our 
character  ?  I  do  not  wholly  agree  with  Edward  Everett, 
in  that  very  able  and  eloquent  address  which  he  delivered 
in  Boston,  in  which,  however,  he  said  one  thing  pre 
eminently  true,  —  he,  the  compromiser,  —  that  if,  in 
1830-31,  nullification,  under  Jackson,  had  been  hung 
instead  of  compromised,  we  never  should  have  had  Jeff 
Davis.  [Loud  applause.]  I  agree  with  him,  and  hope 
we  shall  make  no  second  mistake  of  the  kind.  But  I  do 
not  agree  with  him  in  the  conclusion  that  these  nine 
teen  States,  left  alone,  would  be  of  necessity  a  second-rate 
power.  No.  I  believe  in  brains  ;  and  I  know  these 
Northern  men  have  more  brains  in  their  right  hands  than 
others  have  in  their  heads.  [Laughter  and  cheers.]  I 
know  that  we  mix  our  soil  with  brains,  and  that,  con 
sequently,  we  are  bound  to  conquer.  Why,  the  waves 
of  the  ocean  might  as  well  rebel  against  our  granite  coast, 
or  the  wild  bulls  of  the  prairies  against  man,  as  either 
England  or  the  South  undertake  to  stop  the  march  of  the 
nineteen  Free  States  of  this  continent.  [Applause.] 

It  is  not  power  that  we  should  lose,  but  it  is  character. 
How  should  we  stand  when  Jeff  Davis  had  turned  that 
comer  upon  us,  —  abolished  slavery,  won  European  sym 
pathy,  and  established  his  Confederacy?  Bankrupt  in 
character,  —  outwitted  in  statesmanship.  Our  record 
would  be,  as  we  entered  the  sisterhood  of  nations,  — 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  445 

"Longed  and  struggled  and  begged  to  be  admitted  into 
the  partnership  of  tyrants,  and  they  were  kicked  out!" 
And  the  South  would  spring  into  the  same  arena,  bearing 
on  her  brow,  —  "  She  flung  away  what  she  thought  gain 
ful  and  honest,  in  order  to  gain  her  independence  !  "  A 
record  better  than  the  gold  of  California  or  all  the  brains 
of  the  Yankee. 

Righteousness  is  preservation.  You  who  are  not  Aboli 
tionists  do  not  come  to  this  question  as  I  did, : —  from  an 
interest  in  these  four  millions  of  black  men.  I  came  on 
this  platform  from  sympathy  with  the  negro.  I  acknowl 
edge  it.  You  come  to  this  question  from  an  idolatrous 
regard  for  the  Constitution  of  '89.  But  here  we  stand. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  ocean  is  England,  holding  out, 
not  I  think  a  threat  of  war,  —  I  do  not  fear  it,  —  but 
holding  out  to  the  South  the  intimation  of  a  willingness, 
if  she  will  but  change  her  garments,  and  make  herself 
decent,  [laughter,]  to  take  her  in  charge,  and  give 
her  assistance  and  protection.  There  stands  England, 
the  most  selfish  and  treacherous  of  modern  governments. 
[Loud  and  long-continued  cheers.]  On  the  other  side  of 
the  Potomac  stands  a  statesmanship,  urged  by  personal 
and  selfish  interests,  which  cannot  be  matched,  and  be 
tween  them  they  have  but  one  object,  —  it  is  in  the  end 
to  divide  the  Union. 

Hitherto  the  negro  has  been  a  hated  question.  The 
Union  moved  majestic  on  its  path,  and  shut  him  out, 
eclipsing  him  from  the  sun  of  equality  and  happiness.  He 
has  changed  his  position  to-day.  He  now  stands  between 
us  and  the  sun  of  our  safety  and  prosperity,  and  you  and 
I  are  together  on  the  same  platform,  —  the  same  plank, 
—  our  object  to  save  the  institutions  which  our  fathers 
planted.  Save  them  in  the  service  of  justice,  in  the  ser 
vice  of  peace,  in  the  service  of  liberty ;  and  in  that  service 
demand  of  the  government  at  Washington  that  they  shall 


44b  THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION. 

mature  and  announce  a  purpose.  That  flag  lowered  at 
Sumter,  that  flight  at  Bull  Run,  will  rankle  in  the  heart 
of  the  republic  for  centuries.  Nothing  will  ever  medicine 
that  wound  but  the  government  announcing  to  the  world 
that  it  knows  well  whence  came  its  trouble,  and  is  deter 
mined  to  eifect  its  cure,  and,  consecrating  the  banner  to 
liberty,  to  plant  it  on  the  shores  of  the  Gulf.  [Applause.] 
I  say  in  the  service  of  the  negro ;  but  I  do  not  forget  the 
white  man,  the  eight  millions  of  poor  whites,  thinking 
themselves  our  enemies,  but  who  are  really  our  friends. 
Their  interests  are  identical  with  our  own.  An  Alabama 
slaveholder,  sitting  with  me  a  year  or  two  ago,  said :  — 

"  In  our  northern  counties  they  are  your  friends.  A  man  owns 
one  slave  or  two  slaves,  and  he  eats  with  them,  and  sleeps  in  the 
same  room  (they  have  but  one),  as  much  as  a  hired  man  here 
eats  with  the  farmer  he  serves.  There  is  no  difference.  They 
are  too  poor  to  send  their  sons  North  for  education.  They  have 
no  newspapers,  and  they  know  notliing  but  what  they  are  told  by 
us.  If  you  could  get  at  them,  they  would  be  on  your  side,  but 
we  mean  you  never  shall." 

In  Paris  there  are  one  hundred  thousand  men  whom 
caricature  or  epigram  can  at  any  time  raise  to  barricade 
the  streets.  Whose  fault  is  it  that  such  men  exist  ?  The 
government's ;  and  the  government  under  which  such  a 
mass  of  ignorance  exists  deserves  to  be  barricaded.  The 
government  under  which  eight  millions  of  people  exist,  so 
ignorant  that  two  thousand  politicians  and  a  hundred  thou 
sand  aristocrats  can  pervert  them  into  rebellion,  deserves 
to  be  rebelled  against.  In  the  service  of  those  men  I 
mean,  for  one,  to  try  to  fulfil  the  pledge  my  fathers  made 
when  they  said,  "  We  will  guarantee  to  every  State  a 
republican  form  of  government."  [Applause.]  A  privi 
leged  class,  grown  strong  by  the  help  and  forbearance  of 
the  North,  plots  the  establishment  of  aristocratic  govern 
ment  in  form  as  well  as  essence,  —  conspires  to  rob  the 


THE   WAR   FOR   THE   UNION.  447 

non-sla,veholders  of  their  civil  rights.  This  is  iust  the 
danger  our  national  pledge  was  meant  to  meet.  Our 
fathers'  honor,  national  good  faith,  the  cause  of  free  in 
stitutions,  the  peace  of  the  continent,  bid  us  fulfil  this 
pledge,  —  insist  on  using  the  right  it  gives  us  to  preserve 
the  Union. 

I  mean  to  fulfil  the  pledge  that  free  institutions  shall  he 
preserved  in  the  several  States,  and  I  demand  it  of  the 
government.  I  would  have  them,  therefore,  announce  to 
the  world  what  they  have  never  yet  done.  I  do  not  won 
der  at  the  want  of  sympathy  on  the  part  of  England  with 
us.  The  South  says,  "  I  am  fighting  for  slavery."  The 
North  says,  "I  am  not  fighting  against  it."  Why  should 
England  interfere  ?  The  people  have  nothing  on  which 
to  hang  their  sympathy. 

I  would  have  government  announce  to  the  world  that 
we  understand  the  evil  which  has  troubled  our  peace  for 
seventy  years,  thwarting  the  natural  tendency  of  our  in 
stitutions,  sending  ruin  along  our  wrharves  and  through 
our  workshops  every  ten  years,  poisoning  the  national 
conscience.  We  know  well  its  character.  But  Democ 
racy,  unlike  other  governments,  is  strong  enough  to  let 
evils  work  out  their  own  death,  —  strong  enough  to  face 
them  when  they  reveal  their  proportions.  It  was  in  this 
sublime  consciousness  of  strength,  not  of  weakness,  that 
our  fathers  submitted  to  the  well-known  evil  of  slavery, 
and  tolerated  it  until  the  viper  we  thought  we  could  safely 
tread  on,  at  the  touch  of  disappointment,  starts  up  a  fiend 
whose  stature  reaches  the  sky.  But  our  cheeks  do  not 
blanch.  Democracy  accepts  the  struggle.  After  this  for 
bearance  of  three  generations,  confident  that  she  has  yet 
power  to  execute  her  will,  she  sends  her  proclamation 
down  to  the  Gulf,  —  Freedom  to  every  man  beneath  the 
Stars,  and  death  to  every  institution  that  disturbs  our 
peace  or  threatens  the  future  of  the  republic. 


THE   CABINET. 


1  QUITE  agree  with  the  view  which  my  friend  (Rev. 
M.  D.  Con  way)  takes  of  the  present  situation  of  the 
country,  and  of  our  future.  I  have  no  hope,  as  he  has  not, 
that  the  intelligent  purpose  of  our  government  will  ever 
find  us  a  way  out  of  this  war.  I  think,  if  we  find  any 
way  out  of  it,  we  are  to  stumble  out  of  it  by  the  gradual 
education  of  the  people,  making -their  own  way  on,  a  great 
mass,  without  leaders.  I  do  not  think  that  anything 
which  we  can  call  the  government  has  any  purpose  to  get 
rid  of  slavery.  On  the  contrary,  I  think  the  present  pur 
pose  of  the  government,  so  far  as  it  has  now  a  purpose,  is 
to  end  the  war  and  save  slavery.  I  believe  Mr.  Lincoln 
is  conducting  this  war,  at  present,  with  the  purpose  of 
saving  slavery.  That  is  his  present  line  of  policy,  so  far 
as  trustworthy  indications  of  any  policy  reach  us.  The 
Abolitionists  are  charged  with  a  desire  to  make  this  a  po 
litical  war.  All  civil  wars  are  necessarily  political  wars, 
—  they  can  hardly  be  anything  else.  Mr.  Lincoln  is  in 
tentionally  waging  a  political  war.  He  knows  as  well  as 
we  do  at  this  moment,  as  well  as  every  man  this  side  of  a 
lunatic  hospital  knows,  that,  if  lie  wants  to  save  lives  and 
money,  the  way  to  end  this  war  is  to  strike  at  slavery.  I 
do  not  believe  that  McClellan  himself  is  mad  or  idiotic 
enough  to  have  avoided  that  idea,  even  if  he  hac.  tried  to 
*  Speech  at  Abington,  in  the  Grove,  August  1,  1862. 


THE    CABINET.  449 

do  so.  But  General  McClellan  is  waging  a  political  war ; 
so  is  Mr.  Lincoln.  When  General  Butler  ordered  the 
women  and  children  to  be  turned  out  of  the  camps  at  New 
Orleans,  and  one  of  the  colonels  of  the  Northwest  remon 
strated,  and  hid  himself  in  his  tent,  rather  than  witness  the 
misery  which  the  order  occasioned,  —  when  the  slavehold 
ers  came  to  receive  the  women  and  children  who  were  to 
be  turned  out  of  the  camps,  and  the  troops  actually 
charged  upon  them  with  bayonets  to  keep  them  out  of 
the  line,  —  General  Butler  knew  what  he  was  doing.  It 
was  not  to  save  rations,  it  was  not  to  get  rid  of  individ 
uals  ;  it  was  to  conciliate  New  Orleans.  It  was  a  political 
move.  When  Mr.  Lincoln,  by  an  equivocal  declaration, 
nullifies  General  Hunter,  he  does  not  do  it  because  he 
doubts  either  the  justice  or  the  efficiency  of  Hunter's 
proclamation ;  he  does  it  because  he  is  afraid  of  Kentucky 
on  the  right  hand,  and  the"  Daily  Advertiser  on  the  Irft. 
[Laughter.]  He  has  not  taken  one  step  since  he  entered 
the  Presidency  that  has  been  a  purely  military  step,  and 
he  could  not.  A  civil  war  can  hardly  be  anything  but  a 
political  war.  That  is,  all  civil  wars  are  a  struggle  be 
tween  opposite  ideas,  and  armies  are  but  the  tools.  If 
Mr.  Lincoln  believed  in  the  North  and  in  Liberty,  he 
would  let  our  army  act  on  the  principles  of  Liberty.  He 
does  not.  He  believes  in  the  South  as  the  most  efficient 
and  vital  instrumentality  at  the  present  moment,  therefore 
defers  to  it.  I  had  a  friend  who  went  to  Port  Royal, 
went  among  the  negro  huts,  and  saw  the  pines  that  were 
growing  between  them  shattered  with  shells  and  cannon- 
balls.  He  said  to  the  negroes,  "  When  those  balls  came, 
were  you  here  ?  "  "  Yes."  "  Did  n't  you  run  ?  "  "  No, 
massa,  we  knew  they  were  not  meant  for  us."  It  was  a 
sublime,  childlike  faith  in  the  justice,  the  providence,  of 
the  Almighty.  Every  Southern  traitor  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Potomac  can  say  of  McClellan's  cannon-ball,  if  he 

29 


i50  THE   CABINET. 

ever  fires  one,  "  We  know  it  is  not  meant  for  us."  For 
they  know  he  is  fighting  a  political  war,  as  all  of  us  must ; 
the  only  question  is,  In  the  service  of  which  political  idea 
shall  the  war  be  waged,  —  in  the  service  of  saving  the 
Union  as  it  was,  or  the  Union  as  it  ought  to  be  ?  Mr. 
Lincoln  dare  not  choose  between  these  two  phrases.  He 
is  waging  a  war  which  he  dare  not  describe,  in  the  service 
of  a  political  idea  that  he  dare  not  shape  into  words.  He 
is  not  fighting  vigorously  and  heartily  enough  even  to  get 
good  terms  in  case  of  a  treaty,  —  not  to  talk  of  victory. 
All  savages  call  clemency  cowardice ;  they  respect  noth 
ing  but  force.  The  Southern  barbarians  mistake  clem 
ency  for  cowardice ;  and  every  act  of  Lincoln,  which  he 
thinks  is  conciliation,  they  take  for  evidence  of  his  cow 
ardice,  or  his  distrust.  I  do  not  say  that  McClellan  is  a 
traitor,  but  I  say  this,  that  if  he  had  been  a  traitor  from 
the  crown  of  his  head  to  the  sole  of  his  foot,  he  could  not 
have  served  the  South  better  than  he  has  done  since  he 
was  commander-in-chief  [applause]  ;  he  could  not  have 
carried  on  the  war  in  more  exact  deference  to  the  politics 
of  that  side  of  the  Union.  And  almost  the  same  thing  may 
be  said  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  —  that  if  he  had  been  a  traitor,  he 
could  not  have  worked  better  to  strengthen  one  side,  and 
hazard  the  success  of  the  other.  There  is  more  danger 

c> 

to-day  that  Washington  will  be  taken  than  Richmond. 
Washington  is  besieged  more  truly  than  Richmond  is. 
After  fifteen  months  of  war,  such  is  the  position  of  the 
strongest  nation  on  the  globe ;  for  the  nineteen  Northern 
States,  led  by  a  government  which  serves  their  ideas,  are 
the  strongest  nation  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  Now,  I 
think,  and  if  I  were  in  the  Senate  I  should  have  said  to 
the  government,  that  every  man  who  under  the  present 
policy  loses  his  life  in  the  swamps  of  the  South,  and  every 
dollar  sent  there  to  be  wasted,  only  prolongs  a  murderous 
and  wasteful  war,  waged  for  no  purpose  whatever.  This 


THE   CABINET.  451 

is  my  meaning.  In  this  war,  mere  victory  on  a  battle 
field  amounts  to  nothing,  contributes  little  or  nothing 
toward  ending  the  war.  If  our  present  policy  led  to  de 
cisive  victories,  therefore,  (which  it  does  not,)  it  would  be 
worth  little.  The  war  can  only  be  ended  by  annihilating 
that  oligarchy  which  formed  and  rules  the  South  and 
makes  the  war,  —  by  annihilating  a  state  of  society.  No 
social  state  is  really  annihilated,  except  when  it  is  replaced 
by  another.  Our  present  policy  neither  aims  to  annihilate 
that  state  of  things  we  call  "  the  South,"  made  up  of 
pride,  idleness,  ignorance,  barbarism,  theft,  and  murder, 
nor  to  replace  it  with  a  substitute.  Such  an  aimless  war 
I  call  wasteful  and  murderous.  Better  that  that  South 
should  go  to-day,  than  that  we  should  prolong  such  a  war. 
To  keep  500,000  men  in  the  field,  we  must  have  560,000 
men  on  the  rolls,  for  there  are  58,000  or  60,000  men 
necessarily  invalid  in  an  army  of  half  a  million ;  and  to 
keep  that  560,000  good,  you  must  have  a  fresh  recruiting 
every  year  of  123,000  men.  This  nation  is  to  give,  year 
by  year,  while  this  war  lasts,  123,000  men  to  the  army, 
and  that  number  are  to  fall  out  of  the  ranks,  according  to 
the  experience  of  the  last  sixteen  months,  by  death  either 
from  disease  or  the  sword ;  or,  if  not  death,  then  wounds 
so  serious  as  to  make  a  man's  life  only  a  burden  to  him 
self  and  the  community.  A  hundred  and  twenty-three 
thousand  men  a  year,  and,  I  suppose,  a  million  of  dollars 
a  day,  and  a  government  without  a  purpose  ! 

You  say,  "  Why  not  end  the  war  ? "  We  cannot. 
Jefferson  said  of  slavery,  "  We  have  got  the  wolf  by 
the  ears  ;  we  can  neither  hold  him  nor  let  him  go."  Thaf 
was  his  figure  We  have  now  got  the  South  —  this  wolf 
—  by  the  ears ;  we  must  hold  her ;  we  cannot  let  her  go. 
There  is  to  be  no  peace  on  this  continent,  as  I  believe, 
until  these  thirty  States  are  united.  You  and  I  may  live 
to  be  seventy  years  old ;  we  shall  never  see  peace  on  this 


452  THE   CABINET. 

continent  until  we  see  one  flag  from  the  Lakes  to  the 
Gulf,  and  we  shall  never  see  it  until  slavery  is  eliminated 
from  the  institutions  of  these  States.  Let  the  South  go 
to-morrow,  and  you  have  not  got  peace.  Intestine  wai 
here,  border  war  along  the  line,  aggression  and  intrigue 
on  the  part  of  the  South !  She  has  lived  with  us  for 
seventy  years,  and  kept  us  constantly  in  turmoil.  Exas 
perated  by  suffering,  grown  haughty  by  success,  the  mo 
ment  she  goes  off,  is  such  a  neighbor  likely  to  treat  us  any 
better,  with  our  imaginary  line  between  us,  than  she  has 
treated  us  for  seventy  years  while  she  held  the  sceptre  ? 
The  moment  we  ask  for  term's,  she  counts  it  victory,  and 
the  war  in  another  shape  goes  on.  You  and  I  are  never 
to  see  peace,  we  are  never  to  see  the  possibility  of  putting 
the  army  of  this  nation,  whether  it  be  made  up  of  nine 
teen  or  thirty-four  States,  on  a  peace  footing,  until  slavery 
is  destroyed.  A  large  army,  immense  expenses,  a  foreign 
party  encamped  among  us,  a  despotic  government,  using 
necessarily  despotic  war  powers,  —  that  is  the  future  until 
slavery  is  destroyed.  As  long  as  you  keep  a  tortoise  at 
the  head  of  the  government,  you  are  digging  a  pit  with 
one  hand  and  filling  it  with  the  other.  The  war  means 
digging  a  pit  with  your  two  hands,  and  filling  it  up  with 
the  lives  of  your  sons  and  the  accumulations  of  your 
fathers.  Now,  therefore,  until  this  nation  announces,  in 
some  form  or  other,  that  this  is  a  war,  not  against  Jeffer 
son  Davis,  but  against  the  system  ;  until  the  whole  nation 
indorses  the  resolution  of  the  New  York  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  "  Better  every  rebel  die  than  one  loyal 
soldier,"  [applause,]  and  begs  of  the  government,  de 
mands  of  the  government,  to  speak  that  word  which  is 
victory  and  peace,  —  until  we  do  that,  we  shall  have  no 
prospect  of  peace. 

I  do  not  believe  in  the  government.     I  agree  entirely 
with  Mr.  Conway.     I  do  not  believe  this  government  has 


THE   CABINET.  453 

got  either  vigor  or  a  purpose.  It  drifts  with  events.  If 
Jefferson  Davis  is  a  sane  man,  if  he  is  a  sagacious  man, 
and  has  the  power  to  control  his  army,  he  will  never 
let  it  •  take  Washington  ;  for  he  knows  as  well  as  we  do, 
that  shelling  the  dome  of  that  Capitol  to  ashes,  that  the 
Capitol  in  flames  or  surmounted  with  the  rebel  flag,  would 
be  the  fiery  cross  to  melt  the  North  into  unity,  and  to 
demand  emancipation.  [Applause.]  We  are  paying  a 
million  of  dollars  a  day  for  soldiers  to  dig  ditches  in  the 
Chickahominy  swamps,  but  the  best  expense  we  could  be 
put  to  would  be  to  lose  the  marble  Capitol  under  the  shells 
of  Beauregard  ;  for  the  very  telegraph  that  flashed  the 
news  North  and  West  would  go  back  laden  with  the 
demand  that  if,  in  the  providence  of  God,  Lincoln  had 
survived  the  bombardment  of  Washington,  and  Hamlin 
was  not  President,  —  which  I  wish  he  were,  —  he  should 
proclaim  emancipation.  Possibly  that  would  make  even 
him  over  into  an  Abolitionist.  I  do  not  believe  that  Jef 
ferson  Davis,  while  he  is  able  to  control  his  forces,  will 
ever  allow  them  to  take  Washington.  He  wants  time. 
If  we  float  on  until  the  4th  of  March,  1863,  England 
could  hardly  be  blamed  if  she  did  acknowledge  y  ne  South. 
A  very  fair  argument  could  be  urged,  on  principles  of 
international  law,  that  she  ought  to  do  it.  The  South 
will  have  gone  far  to  prove  her  right  to  be  acknowledged. 
She  will  have  maintained  herself  two  full  years  against 
such  efforts  as  no  nation  ever  made.  Davis  wants  to  tide 
over  to  that  time,  without  rousing  the  North.  He  does 
not  wish  any  greater  successes  than  will  just  keep  us 
where  we  are,  and  allow  Europe  to  see  the  South  strong, 
vigorous,  and  the  North  only  her  equal.  One  such  move 
as  that  on  Washington,  and  the  South  would  kick  the 
beam.  He  knows  it.  If  any  man  has  light  enough  on 
the  future  to  pray  God  to  do  any  particular  thing,  I  advise 
him  to  pray  for  an  attack  on  Washington  and  its  capture, 


454  THE   CABINET. 

for  nothing  less  than  that  seems  likely,  within  a  few 
months,  to  wake  up  these  Northern  States  to  the  present 
emergency.  But  for  these  considerations,  I  see  not  why 
Jefferson  Davis  should  not  throw  all  his  troops  upon 
Washington,  first  informing  General  McCIellan  of  the 
proposed  attack,  and  demanding  of  him  enough  Federal 
troops  to  protect  the  rebel  property  at  Richmond  during 
Beauregard's  absence. 

The  President,  judged  by  both  proclamations  that  have 
followed  the  late  confiscation  act  of  Congress,  has  no  mind 
whatever.  He  has  not  uttered  a  word  which  gives  even  a 
twilight  glimpse  of  any  antislavery  purpose.  He  may  be 
honest, — nobody  cares  whether  the  tortoise  is  honest  or 
not ;  he  has  neither  insight,  nor  prevision,  nor  decision. 
It  is  said  in  Washington  streets  that  he  long  ago  wrote  a 
proclamation  abolishing  slavery  in  the  State  of  Virginia, 
but  McCIellan  bullied  him  out  of  it.  It  is  said,  too, — 
what  is  extremely  probable,  —  that  he  has  more  than 
once  made  up  his  mind  to  remove  McCIellan,  and  Ken 
tucky  bullied  him  out  of  it.  The  man  who  has  been 
beaten  to  that  pulp  in  sixteen  months,  what  hope  can  we 
have  of  him  ?  None.  There  is  no  ground  for  any  ex 
pectations  from  this  government.  We  are  to  pray  for 
such  blows  as  will  arouse  the  mass  of  the  people  into 
systematic,  matured,  intelligent  interference  in  the  action 
of  the  government.  When  I  was  here  a  year  ago,  I  said 
I  thought  the  President  needed  the  advice  of  great  bodies 
of  prominent  men.  That  has  taken  a  year.  The  New 
York  Chamber  of  Commerce,  the  Common  Council,  and 
the  Defence  Committee,  have  just  led  the  way.  Some  of 
the  Western  Councils  have  followed,  it  is  said.  Let  us 
hope  that  they  may  have  decisive  effect  at  Washington  ; 
but  I  do  not  believe  they  will.  I  do  not  believe  there  is 
in  that  Cabinet  —  Seward,  Chase,  Stanton,  Wells,  or  the 
President  of  the  country  —  enough  to  make  a  leader.  If 


THE   CABINET  455 

McClellan  should  capitulate  in  his  swamp,  if  Johnston 
should  take  Washington,  if  Butler  should  be  driven  out  of 
New  Orleans,  if  those  ten  fabulous  iron  ships  from  Eng 
land  at  Mobile  could  be  turned  into  realities,  and  Palm- 
erston  acknowledge  the  Confederacy,  I  should  have  hope  ; 
for  I  do  not  believe  these  nineteen  millions  of  people  mean 
to  be  beaten  ;  and  if  they  do,  I  do  not  believe  they,  can 
afford  to  be  beaten.  I  think,  when  we  begin  to  yield, 
the  South  will  demand  such  terms  as  even  the  Boston 
Courier  cannot  get  low  enough  to  satisfy  them.  [Laugh 
ter  and  applause.]  You  do  not  know  the  sublime  impu- 
uence  and  haughtiness  of  the  tyrants  of  the  South.  You 
•jave  not  yet  measured  the  terms  which  Jefferson  Davis 
vill  impose  upon  the  North,  when,  if  ever,  it  proposes 
tccommodation.  The  return  of  fugitives,  the  suppression 
>f  antislavcry  discussion,  monopoly  of  the  Mississippi,  sur 
render  of  some  Border  States,  —  a  thousand  things  that 
would  make  the  yoke  too  heavy  to  be  borne.  I  never  did 
believe  in  the  capacity  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  but  I  do 
believe  in  the  pride  of  Davis,  in  the  vanity  of  the  South, 
in  the  desperate  determination  of  those  fourteen  States  ; 
and  I  believe  in  a  sunny  future,  because  God  has  driven 
them  mad ;  and  their  madness  is  our  safety.  They  will 
never  consent  to  anything  that  the  North  can  grant ;  and 
you  must  whip  them,  because,  unless  you  do,  they  will 
grind  you  to  powder. 

This  war  is  to  go  on.  There  will  be  drafting  in  three 
months  or  six.  The  hunker,  when  he  is  obliged  to  go  to 
war,  will  be  like  the  man  of  whom  Mr.  Conway  told  us, 
who  was  willing  to  sit  by  a  negro  in  the  cars  rather  than 
stand  all  night,  —  he  will  be  willing  that  the  negro  shall 
fight,  with  him  or  without  him.  That  is  a  part  of  the  logic 
of  events  which  will  be  very  effective ;  but  even  that  will 
not  make  Lincoln  declare  for  emancipation.  We  shall  wait 
one  year  or  two,  if  we  wait  for  him,  before  we  get  it.  In 


456  THE   CABINET. 

the  mean  time  what  an  expense  of  blood  and  treasure  each 
day !  It  is  a  terrible  expense  that  democracy  pays  for  its 
mode  of  government.  If  we  lived  in  England  now,  if  we 
lived  in  France  now,  a  hundred  men,  convinced  of  the 
exigency  of  the  moment,  would  carry  the  nation  here  or 
there.  It  is  the  royal  road,  short,  sharp,  and  stern,  like 
the  2d  of  December,  with  Napoleon's  cannon  enfilading 
every  street  in  Paris.  Democracy,  when  it  moves,  has  to 
carry  the  whole  people  with  it.  The  minds  of  nineteen 
millions  of  people  are  to  be  changed  and  educated.  Min 
isters  and  politicians  have  been  preaching  to  them  that  the 
negro  will  not  fight,  that  he  is  a  nuisance,  that  slavery  is 
an  ordination  of  God,  that  the  North  ought  to  bar  him  out 
with  statutes.  The  North  wakes  up,  its  heart  poisoned,  its 
hands  paralyzed  with  these  ideas,  and  says  to  its  tortoise 
President,  "  Save  us,  but  not  through  the  negro  !  "  You 
do  not  yet  believe  in  the  negro.  The  papers  are  accumu 
lating  statistics  to  prove  that  the  negro  will  work,  and 
asking  whether  he  will  fight.  If  he  will  not  fight,  we  are 
gone,  that  is  all !  If  he  will  not  work  without  the  lash, 
the  Union  is  over.  If  the  hunker  theory  is  correct,  there 
can  be  n»  peace  nor  union  on  this  continent,  except  under 
the  heel  of  a  slaveholding  despotism.  It  is  not  the  South 
we  have  to  conquer ;  it  is  the  Egypt  of  the  Southern  half 
of  Illinois  ;  it  is  the  Devil  in  the  editor's  chair  of  the  Boston 
Courier  [merriment]  ;  it  is  the  lump  of  unbaked  dough, 
with  no  vitality  except  hatred  of  Charles  Sumner,  which 
sits  in  the  editorial  chair  of  the  Daily  Advertiser  [ap 
plause]  ;  it  is  the  man  who  goes  down  to  Virginia  with 
the  army,  and  thinks  he  goes  there  to  watch  the  house 
of  General  Lee,  and  make  the  slaves  work  for  him,  while 
the  master  has  gone  to  Corinth  or  to  Richmond.  These 
are  the  real  enemies  of  the  republic ;  and  if  Lincoln  could 
be  painted,  as  Vanity  Fair  once  painted  him,  like  Sinbad 
with  the  Old  Man  of  the  Sea  on  his  shoulders,  it  should  be 


THE  CABINET.  457 

these  conservative  elements  weighing  down  the  heart  and 
the  purpose  of  your  President  that  the  limner  should  pre 
sent.  If  we  go  to  the  bottom,  it  will  be  because  we  have, 
in  the  providence  of  God,  richly  deserved  it.  It  is  the 
pro-slavery  North  that  is  her  own  greatest  enemy.  Lin 
coln  would  act,  if  he  believed  the  North  wanted  him  to. 
The  North,  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  is  ready  to  have 
him  act,  will  indorse  and  support  anything  he  does,  yes, 
hopes  he  will  \  o  forward.  True,  it  is  not  yet  ripe  enough 
to  demand ;  but  it  is  fully  willing,  indeed  waits,  for  action. 
With  chronic  Whig  distrust  and  ignorance  of  the  people, 
Lincoln  halts  and  fears.  Our  friend  Conway  has  fairly 
painted  him.  He  is  not  a  genius ;  he  is  not  a  man  like 
Fremont,  to  stamp  the  lava  mass  of  the  nation  with  an 
idea ;  he  is  not  a  man  like  Hunter,  to  coin  his  experience 
into  ideas.  I  will  tell  you  what  he  is.  He  is  a  first-rate 
second-rate  man.  [Laughter.]  He  is  one  of  the  best 
specimens  of  a  second-rate  man,  and  he  is  honestly  wait 
ing,  like  any  other  servant,  for  the  people  to  come  and 
send  him  on  any  errand  they  wish.  In  ordinary  times, 
when  the  seas  are  calm,  you  can  sail  without  a  pilot,  — 
almost  any  one  can  avoid  a  sunken  ledge  that  the  sun 
shows  him  on  his  right  hand,  and  the  reef  that  juts  out 
on  his  left ;  but  it  is  when  the  waves  smite  heaven,  and 
the  thunder-cloud  makes  the  waters  ink,  that  you  need  a 
pilot;  and  to-day  the  nation's  bark  scuds,  under  the  tem 
pest,  lee-shore  and  maelstrom  on  each  side,  needing  no 
holiday  captain,  but  a  pilot,  to  weather  the  storm.  Mr. 
Conway  thinks  we  are  to  ride  on  a  couple  of  years,  and 
get  one.  I  doubt  it.  Democracy  is  poisoning  its  fangs. 
It  is  making  its  way  among  the  ballot-boxes  of  the 
nation.  I  doubt  whether  our  next  Congress  will  be  as 
good  as  the  last.  That  is  not  saying  much.  I  doubt 
whether  there  will  be  such  a  weight  of  decided  Repub 
licanism  in  it  as  there  was  in  the  last  Congress.  I 


458  THE   CABINET. 

should  be  afraid  to  commit  to  the  nation  to-day  the  choice 
of  a  President.  What  we  want  is  some  stunning  misfor 
tune  ;  what  we  want  is  a  baptism  of  blood,  to  make  the 
aching  and  bereaved  hearts  of  the  people  cry  out  for  Fre 
mont,  for  an  idea,  at  the  head  of  the  armies.  [Applause.] 
Meanwhile,  we  must  wander  on  in  the  desert,  wasteful 
murderers.  Every  life  lost  in  that  swamp  is  murder  by 
the  Cabinet  at  Washington.  Every  dollar  spent  is  stolen 
from  the  honest  toil  of  the  North,  to  pamper  the  conceited 
pride  of  the  South  in  her  own  institution.  Whose  fault  ? 
Largely  ours,  —  not  wholly  Lincoln's.  He  is  as  good  as 
the  average  North,  but  not  a  leader,  which  is  what  we 
need.  In  yonder  grove,  July  after  July,  in  years  just  past, 
the  Whigs  of  this  Commonwealth  lavished  their  money 
to  fire  guns  once  every  minute  to  smother  the  speeches 
that  were  made  on  our  platform.  You  remember  it.  The 
sons  of  those  men  are  dying  in  the  South  because  their 
fathers  smothered  the  message  which,  heeded,  might  have 
saved  this  terrible  lesson  to  the  nation.  [Sensation.]  Who 
shall  say  that  God  is  not  holding  to  their  lips  the  cup  which 
they  poisoned  ?  That  Massachusetts  is  to  be  made  over 
again,  and,  under  competent  leaders,  huiled  as  a  thunder 
bolt  against  the  rebellion.  We  are  not  to  shrink  from  the 
idea  that  this  is  a  political  war :  it  must  be.  But  its  poli 
tics  is  a  profound  faith  in  God  and  the  people,  in  justice 
and  liberty,  as  the  eternal  safety  of  nations  as  well  as  of 
men.  [Applause.]  It  is  of  that  Lincoln  should  make  his 
politics,  planting  the  corner-stone  of  the  new  Union  in  the 
equality  of  every  man  before  the  law,  and  justice  to  all 
races.  [Renewed  applause.]  If  military  necessity  did 
not  call  for  a  million  of  blacks  in  the  army,  civil  necessity 
would  dictate  it.  Slavery,  instead  of  being  a  dreaded 
perplexity,  something  we  are  to  wail  over,  is  a  God-given 
weapon,  a  glorious  opportunity,  a  sword  rough-ground  by 
God,  and  ready  every  moment  for  our  use.  The  nation, 


THE   CABINET.  459 

the  most  stupid  in  it,  —  all  but  the  traitors, — know  and 
confess  that  to  abolish  it  would  end  the  rebellion.  Thus, 
therefore,  God  gives  us  knowledge,  keeps  for  us  the  weapon  ; 
all  we  need  ask  for  is  courage  to  use  it.  I  say,  there 
fore,  as  Mr.  Conway  did,  cease  believing  in  the  Cabinet ; 
there  is  nothing  there  for  you.  Pray  God  that,  before  he 
abandons  this  nation,  he  will  deign  to  humble  it  by  one 
blow  that  shall  make  it  spring  to  its  feet,  and  use  the 
strength  it  has.  Beseech  him  to  put  despair  into  the 
hearts  of  the  Cabinet.  If  we  are  ever  called  to  see  an 
other  President  of  the  United  States  on  horseback  flying 
from  his  Capital,  waste  no  tears  !  He  will  return  to  that 
Capital  on  the  arms  of  a  million  of  adult  negroes,  the  sure 
basis  of  a  Union  which  will  never  be  broken.  [Applause.] 
I  like  some  of  the  signs  of  the  times.  I  like  the  resolu 
tions  of  the  New  York  Chamber  of  Commerce.  I  like 
the  article  from  Wilkes's  Spirit  of  the  Times,  bidding  us 
criticise  McClellan,  and  no  longer  believe  that  Napoleons 
are  made  of  mud.  [Laughter.]  I  think  the  two  poles  of 
popular  influence  have  been  struck ;  the  young  men,  the 
sporting  men,  the  fast  men,  the  dissipated  men,  the  New 
York  Herald's  constituency,  and  the  commercial  class,  the 
merchants  and  bankers  of  the  great  metropolis.  The  thirty 
thousand  copies  of  Wilkes  which  are  circulated  every  week 
have  a  mighty  influence.  When  its  readers  begin  to  be 
lieve  that  McClellan  is  made  of  mud,  it  is  a  bright  sign. 
Do  not  look  to  the  Capital:  We  did  think  there  was  some 
thing  in  Stanton ;  there  may  be  ;  but  he  is  overslaughed, 
he  is  eclipsed,  he  has  gone  into  retirement  behind  Seward. 
The  policy  which  prevails  at  Washington  is  to  do  nothing, 
and  wait  for  events.  I  asked  the  lawyers  of  Illinois,  who 
had  practised  law  with  Mr.  Lincoln  for  twenty  years,  "  Is 
he  a  man  of  decision,  is  he  a  man  who  can  say  no  ?  "  They 
all  said :  "  If  you  had  gone  to  the  Illinois  bar,  and  selected 
the  man  least  capable  of  saying  no,  it  would  have  been 


460  THE   CABINET. 

Abraham  Lincoln.  He  has  no  stiffness  in  him."  I  said 
to  the  bankers  and  the  directors  of  railroads  in  Chicago, 
"Is  McClellan  a  man  who  can  say  no?"  and  they  said: 
"  Banks  we  had  only  a  few  months  ;  we  don't  think 
much  of  him  ;  but  to  every  question  you  asked,  he  wo'uld 
say  yes  or  no  in  sixty  minutes.  McClellan  never  answered 
a  question  while  he  was  here.  If  there  was  one  to  be 
decided,  he  floated  until  events  decided  it.  He  was  here 
months,  and  never  decided  a  single  questi  m  that  came  up 
in  the  management  of  the  Illinois  Central."  These  are 
the  men  we  have  put  at  the  head  of  the  Union,  and  for 
fourteen  months  they  have  been  unable  to  say  yes  or  no. 
But  that  is  the  fault  of  the  nation.  We  should  have  been 
five  hundred  millions  of  dollars  richer,  and  sixty-three  thou 
sand  lives  more  populous,  if  even  Banks  had  been  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  instead  of  McClellan.  [Applause.]  I 
do  not  believe  that  Banks  knows  how  to  handle  an  army, 
as  we  all  know  he  has  no  ideas,  but  I  believe  he  would 
have  pressed  that  army  on  and  against  something,  and 
that  is  all  it  needed.  I  had  a  private  letter  from  a  captain 
in  McClellan's  army  in  the  Peninsula,  in  which  he  said : 
"  We  have  had  five  chances  to  enter  Richmond  ;  we  might 
have  done  it  after  Yorktown,  after  Williamsburg,  and  after 
Seven  Pines,  just  as  well  as  not ;  no  troops  in  front  of  us, 
we  ourselves  in  full  condition  for  an  advance.  Instead  of 
that,  we  sat  down  and  dug." 

The  most  serious  charge  I  have  against  the  President, 
the  only  thing  that  makes  a  film  upon  his  honesty,  —  for 
I  believe  him  as  honest  a's  the  measure  of  his  intellect  and 
circumstances  of  his  life  allow,  —  is  this :  that,  while  I  do 
not  believe  that  in  his  heart  he  trusts  McClellan  a  whit 
more  than  I  do,  from  fear  of  the  Border  States  and  North 
ern  conservatism  he  keeps  him  at  the  head  of  the  army, 
which  loses  two  thousand  men  by  disease  every  week,  and 
spends  from  sixty  to  seventy  thousand  dollars  a  day ;  and 


THE   CABINET.  461 

if,  twenty  years  hence,  he  renders  up  an  account  of  his 
stewardship  to  his  country,  you  that  live,  mark  me  !  will 
see  him  confess  that  this  whole  winter  he  never  helieved 
in  McClellan's  ability.  That  is  the  sore  spot  in  the  char 
acter  of  an  otherwise  honest  officer,  and  that  is  where  this 
fear  of  conservatism  sends  him.  Mr.  Wickliffe  of  Ken 
tucky  and  Mr.  Davis  of  Kentucky  put  their  feet  down 
and  say,  "  Do  this,  and  the  Border  States  leave  you." 
There  is  not  a  Republican  at  the  North  who  will  be  al 
lowed  to  say  it.  Governor  Andrew  lisped  it  once,  in  his 
letter  to  Secretary  Stanton,  and  how  few,  except  the 
Abolitionists,  dared  to  stand  by  him,  even  in  Massachu 
setts  !  There  is  no  public  opinion  that  would  support  Mr. 
Sumner,  with  a  loyal  Commonwealth  behind  him,  in  mak 
ing  such  a  speech,  once  in  the  winter,  as  Garrett  Davis 
made  every  day,  with  a  Commonwealth  behind  him  which 
has  to  be  held  in  the  Union  by  the  fear  of  Northern  bay 
onets.  It  is  because  Conservatism  is  bold  and  Republi 
canism  is  coward  ["  Hear  !  "]  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
has  to  stand  where  he  does  to-day.  There  will  be  no 
mystery  if  this  nation  goes  to  pieces.  It  will  be  God 
punishing  it  according  to  the  measure  of  its  sins.  Ten 
years  ago  the  Whig  party  could  have  educated  it,  and  so 
postponed  or  averted  this  convulsion.  It  was  left  to  pass 
on  in  its  career,  and  the  South  finds  it  divided  in  senti 
ment,  servile  in  purpose  ;  our  soldiers  the  servants  of 
rebels  ;  our  officers,  with  shoulder-straps,  on  the  soil  of  a 
rebellious  State  like  Virginia,  more  sycophantic  to  the 
slaveholder  Avho  comes  to  their  camp,  than  Webster  was 
in  the  Senate  when  Clay  threatened  him  with  the  lash  of 
Southern  insolence,  fifteen  years  ago.  If  this  rebellion 
cannot  shake  the  North  out  of  her  servility,  God  will  keep 
her  in  constant  agitation  until  he  does  shake  us  into  a  self- 
respecting,  courageous  people,  fit  to  govern  ourselves. 
[Applause.]  This  war  will  last  just  long  enough  to  make 


462  THE   CABINET. 

us  over  into  men,  and  when  it  has  done  this,  we  shall 
conquer  with  as  much  ease  as  the  lion  takes  the  tiniest 
animal  in  his  gripe.  If  Mr.  Lincoln  could  only  be  wak 
ened  to  the  idea  which  Mr.  Con  way  has  expressed,  that 
God  gives  him  the  thunderbolt  of  slavery  with  which  to 
crush  the  rebellion  ;  that  there  was  never  a  rebellion 
arranged  by  Providence  to  be  put  down  so  easily,  so  com 
pletely,  so  beneficially  as  this  ;  that,  unlike  the  aristocracy 
of  France  and  England,  rooting  itself  underneath  the 
whole  surface  of  society,  slavery  almost  makes  good  the 
prayer  of  the  Roman  tyrant,  "  Would  that  the  people  had 
one  neck,  and  I  could  cut  it!"  —  if  Mr.  Lincoln  could 
only  understand  this,  victory  would  be  easy.  God  has 
massed  up  slavery  into  three  hundred  thousand  hands. 
He  has  marked  it  by  the  black  color,  so  that  the  most 
ignorant  cannot  err,  so  that  the  blindest  shall  see  enough 
to  strike  at  this  central  figure  which  holds  the  life-blood  of 
the  rebellion.  [Applause.]  Let  us  do  our  duty,  and 
feel,  however  long  the  war,  however  fatal  and  disastrous 
the  experience,  that  we  have  left  no  stone  unturned,  no 
word  unspoken,  which  can  save  a  mighty  nation  from  the 
greatest  sufferings  God  eveivinflicted  on  an  age. 

My  friend  says  he  would  say  to  the  tyrants  of  the  Old 
World,  "  Come  on !  "  That  is  a  fearful  taunt.  The 
collision  of  two  such  nations  as  the  England  of  this  side 
the  Atlantic,  and  the  England  of  the  other,  would  shake 
the  globe.  No  such  war  has  been  known  since  Christ. 
Half  of  all  the  old  wars  massed  into  one  would  not  equal 
it.  We  should  sweep  the  commerce  of  the  mightiest 
commercial  nation  from  the  ocean.  We  should  send 
starvation  into  Lancashire  and  Lyons,  and  she  would 
make  our  coast  a  desolation,  and  send  anguish  into  mil 
lions  of  homes.  The  ingenuity  of  one  race  divided  into 
two  nations,  which  has  reached  an  almost  superhuman 
acuteness,  would  be  all  poured  into  the  channel  of  the 


THE   CABINET.  463 

bloodiest  war ;  and  behind  it  would  be  the  Saxon  deter 
mination,  which,  like  that  of  the  bull-dog,  its  type,  will 
die  in  the  death-grapple  before  it  yields.  Old  national 
hate,  fresh-edged  and  perpetuated,  —  untold  wealth  de 
stroyed,  —  millions  of  lives  lost,  lives  of  tho  most  culti 
vated  nations,  —  the  progress  of  the  race  stopped,  —  chaos 
come  again  over  the  fairest  portion  of  Christendom, — 
fifty  millions  of  people,  dealing  such  death-blows  across 
the  Atlantic  in  the  nineteenth  century,  —  it  is  a  burden 
which  we  are  to  pray  God  he  will  not  call  upon  us  to  bear, 
—  a  curse  from  which  he  will  graciously  save  civilization 
and  the  race.  On  the  contrary,  let  us  hope  that  Southern 
success  may  be  so  rapid  and  abundant,  that  a  blow  like 
that  which  stuns  the  drunkard  into  sobriety  may  stun  our 
Cabinet  into  vigor,  and  that  nineteen  millions  of  people, 
putting  forth  their  real  strength  in  the  right  direction, 
may  keep  peace  outside  our  borders  until  we  make  peace 
within.  [Loud  applause.] 


LETTER  TO  THE  TRIBUNE. 


To  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  TRIBUNE:  — 

SIR :  You  misrepresent  me  when  you  say  that  I  dis 
courage  enlistments  in  the  Union  armies ;  though,  for 
aught  I  know,  the  garbled  extracts  and  lying  versions  of 
New  York  papers  may  make  me  do  that  and  many  other 
things  I  never  thought  of.  You  know,  by  experience, 
that  the  American  press,  in  general,  neither  tries  nor 
means  to  speak  truth  about  Abolitionists  of  any  type.  I 
have  never  discouraged  enlistments.  In  the  Union  army 
are  my  kindred  and  some  of  my  dearest  friends.  Others 
rest  in  fresh  and  honorable  graves.  No  one  of  these  ever 
heard  a  word  from  me  to  discourage  his  enlisting.  I  had 
the  honor,  last  March,  to  address  the  Fourteenth  Massa 
chusetts  at  Fort  Albany,  and,  this  very  week,  the  Thirty- 
third  Massachusetts  at  Camp  Cameron.  No  man  in  either 
regiment  heard  anything  from  my  lips  to  discourage  his 
whole-souled  service  of  the  Union. 

Allow  me  to  state  my  own  position.  From  1843  to 
1861,  I  was  a  Disunionist,  and  sought  to  break  this  Union, 
convinced  that  disunion  was  the  only  righteous  path,  and 
the  best  one  for  the  white  man  and  the  black.  I  sought 
disunion,  not  through  conspiracy  and  violence,  but  by 
means  which  the  Constitution  itself  warranted  and  pro 
tected.  I  rejoice  in  those  efforts.  They  were  wise  and 
useful.  Sumter  changed  the  whole  question.  After  that, 


LETTER  TO  THE  TRIBUNE.  465 

peace  and  justice  both  forbade  disunion.     I  now  believe 
three  things :  — 

1.  The  destruction  of  slavery  is  inevitable,  whichever 
section  conquers  in  this  struggle. 

2.  There  never  can  be  peace  or  union  till  slavery  is 
destroyed. 

3.  There  never  can  be  peace  till  one  government  rules 
from  the   Gulf  to  the  Lakes ;    and  having  wronged   the 
negro  for  two  centuries,  we  owe  him  the  preservation  of 
the  Union  to  guard  his-  transition  from  slavery  to  freedom, 
and  make  it  short,  easy,  and  perfect. 

Believing  these  three  things,  I  accept  Webster's  senti 
ment,  "  Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and 
inseparable."  Gladly  would  I  serve  that  Union,  —  giving 
it  musket,  sword,  voice,  pen,  —  the  best  I  have.  But 
the  Union  which  has  for  twenty-five  years  barred  me 
from  its  highest  privileges  by  demanding  an  oath  to  a  pro- 
slavery  Constitution,  still  shuts  that  door  in  my  face  ;  and 
this  administration  still  clings  to  a  policy  which,  I  think, 
makes  every  life  now  lost  in  Virginia,  and  every  dollar 
now  spent  there,  utter  waste.  I  cannot  conscientiously 
support  such  a  Union  and  administration.  But  there  is 
room  for  honest  difference  of  opinion.  Others  can  support 
it.  To  such  I  say,  Go ;  give  to  the  Union  your  best 
blood,  your  heartiest  support. 

Is  there,  then,  no  place  left  for  me  ?  Yes.  I  believe 
in  the  Union.  But  government  and  the  Union  are  one 
thing.  This  administration  is  quite  another.  Whether 
the  administration  will  ever  pilot  us  through  our  troubles, 
I  have  serious  doubts :  that  it  never  will,  unless  it  changes 
its  present  policy,  I  am  quite  certain.  Where,  then,  is  my 
place  under  a  republican  government  which  only  reflects 
and  executes  public  opinion  ?  I  believe  in  getting  through 
this  war  by  the  machinery  of  regular  government,  not  by 
any  Cromwell  stalking  into  the  Senate-Chamber  or  the 

30 


466  LETTER   TO  THE   TRIBUNE. 

White  House.  Where,  then,  is  my  post,  especially  tmdei 
an  administration  that  avowedly  sits  waiting,  begging  to 
be  told  what  to  do  ?  I  must  educate,  arouse,  and  mature 
a  public  opinion  which  shall  compel  the  administration  to 
adopt  and  support  it  in  pursuing  the  policy  I  can  aid. 
This  I  do  by  frankly  and  candidly  criticising  its  present 
policy,  civil  and  military.  However  "  inapt  and  objec 
tionable  "  you  may  think  my  "  means,"  they  are  exactly 
described  in  your  own  words :  "  The  good  citizen  may 
owe  his  government  counsel,  entreaty,  admonition,  to 
abandon  a  mistaken  policy,  as  well  as  force  to  sustain  it  in 
the  discharge  of  its  great  responsibilities."  No  adminis 
tration  can  demand  of  a  citizen  to  sacrifice  his  conscience, 
and  the  limits  within  which  he  is  bound  to  sacrifice  his 
opinion  are  soon  reached.  If  the  press  had  not  systemati 
cally  eulogized  a  general,  whom  none  knew,  and  few 
really  trusted,  we  should  have  saved  twelve  months,  five 
hundred  millions  of  dollars,  and  a  hundred  thousand  lives. 
In  my  opinion,  had  the  Tribune  continued,  last  August, 
to  do  its  duty  and  demand  vigor  of  the  government,  you 
would  have  changed  or  controlled  the  Cabinet  in  another 
month,  and  saved  us  millions  of  dollars,  thousands  of  lives, 
and  untold  disgrace.  Such  criticism  is  always  every 
thinking  man's  duty.  War  excuses  no  man  from  this 
duty :  least  of  all  now,  when  a  change  of  public  sentiment, 
to  lead  the  administration  to  and  support  it  in  a  new 
policy,  is  our  only  hope  of  saving  the  Union.  The  Union 
belongs  to  me  as  much  as  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  What 
right  has  he  or  any  official  —  our  servants  —  to  claim  that 
I  shall  cease  criticising  his  mistakes,  when  they  are  drag 
ging  the  Union  to  ruin  ?  I  find  grave  faults  in  President 
Lincoln ;  but  I  do  not  believe  he  makes  any  such  claim. 

I  said  on  the  1st  of  August,  that,  had  I  been  in  the 
Senate,  I  should  have  refused  the  administration  a  dollar 
or  a  man  until  it  adopted  a  right  policy.  That  I  repeat. 


LETTER   TO  THE   TRIBUNE.  467 

Had  I  been,  in  that  way,  a  part  of  the  government,  I 
should  have  tried  so  to  control  its  action.  You  were  bound 
as  a  journalist,  I  think,  to  have  impressed  that  duty  on  the 
Republican  party  which  holds  the  administration.  Such 
a  course  is  right  and  proper  under  free  governments. 
But  when  Congress  has  decided,  and  under  its  authority, 
or  by  his  own,  the  President  demands  soldiers,  the  hour 
for  such  effort  or  protest  is  gone.  We  have  no  right  now 
to  "  discourage  enlistments,"  as  a  means  to  change  public 
opinion,  or  to  influence  the  administration.  Our  remedy 
is  different.  If  we  cannot  actively  aid,  we  must  submit  to 
the  penalty,  and  strive  meanwhile  to  change  that  public 
thought  which  alone  can  alter  the  action  of  government. 

That  duty  I  try  to  do  in  my  measure.  My  criticism  is 
not,  like  that  of  the  traitor  presses,  meant  to  paralyze  the 
administration,  but  to  goad  it  to  more  activity  and  vigor, 
or  to  change  the  Cabinet.  I  claim  of  you,  as  a  journalist 
of  broad  influence,  that  you  resume  the  post  which  I  think 
you  deserted  last  summer,  and  hasten  the  ripening  of  that 
necessary  public  purpose  by  constant  and  fearless  criticism 
of  the  whole  policy  of  the  administration,  civil  and  mili 
tary,  in  order  to  avert  years  of  war,  to  save  thousands  of 
lives,  to  guard  the  industry  of  the  future  from  grinding 
taxes,  to  secure  speedy  and  complete  justice  for  the  negro, 
and  to  put  the  Union  beyond  hazard. 

Respectfully  yours, 

WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 
August  16,  1862. 


TOTJSSAINT  L'OUVERTURE.! 


LADIES    AND    GENTLEMEN  :    I  have   been   re> 
quested  to  offer  you  a  sketch  made  some  years  since, 
of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  the  last  generation, 

—  the   great  St.  Domingo  chief,   Toussaint  FOuverture, 
an  unmixed  negro,  with  no  drop  of  white  blood  in  his 
veins.     My  sketch  is  at  once  a  biography  and  an  argu- 
ineivt,  —  a  biography,   of  course  very  brief,  of  a  negro 
soldier  and  statesman,  which  I  offer  you  as  an  argument 
in  behalf  of  the  race  from  which  he  sprung.     I  am  about 
to  comnare_and  w^igh  rages  ;  indeed,  I  am  engaged  to 
night  in  what  you  will  think  the  absurd  effort  to  convince 
you  that  the  negro  race,  instead  of  being  that  object  of 
pity  or  contempt  which  we  usually  consider  it,  is  entitled, 
judged  by  the  facts  of  history,  to  a  place  close  by  the  side 
of  the  Saxon.     Now  races  love  to  be  judged  in  two  ways, 

—  by  the  great  men  they  produce,  and  by  the   avenge 
merit  of  the  mass  of  the  race.     We  Saxons  are  proud  of 
Bacon,    Shakespeare,    Hampden,   Washington,    Franklin, 
the  stars  we  have  lent  to  the  galaxy  of  history  ;  and  then 
we  turn  with  equal  pride  to  the  average  merit  of  Saxon 
blood,    since   \t   streamed   from    its   German    home.     So, 
again,   there  are   three  tests  by  which  races  love  to  be 
tried.'"  The  first,  the  basis  of  all,  is  courage,  —  the  ele 
ment  which   says,   here   and  to-day,    "  This  continent  is 

*  Lecture  delivered  m  "New  York  and  Boston.  December,  1861. 


TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE.  469 

mine,  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf:  let  him  beware  who 
seeks  to  divide  it !  "  [Cheers.]  And  the  second  is  the 
recognition  that  force  is  doubled  by  purpose  ;  liberty 
regulated  by  law  is  the  secret  of  Saxon  progress.  And 
the  third  element  is  persistency,  endurance ;  first  a  pur 
pose,  then  death  or  success.  Of  these  three  elements  is 
made  that  Saxon  pluck  which  has  placed  our  race  in  the 
van  of  modern  civilization. 

In  the  hour  you  lend  me  to-night,  I  attempt  the  Quix- 
otic  effort  to  convince  you  that  the  negro  blood,  instead  of 
standing  at  the  bottom  of  the  list,  is  entitled,  if  judged 
either  by  its  great  men  or  its  masses,  either  by  its  courage, 
its  purpose,  or  its  endurance,  to  a  place  as  near  ours  as 
any  other  blood  known  in  history.  )  And,  for  the  purpose 
of  my*  argument,  I  take  an  island,  St.  Domingo,  about  the 
size  of  South  Carolina,  the  third  spot  in  America  upon 
which  Columbus  placed  his  foot.  Charmed  by  the  mag 
nificence  of  its  scenery  and  fertility  of  its  soil,  he  gave  it 
the  fondest  of  all  names,  Hispaniola,  Little  Spain.  His 
successor,  more  pious,  rebaptized  it  from  St.  Dominic,  St. 
Domingo  ;  and  when  the  blacks,  in  1803,  drove  our  white 
blood  from  its  surface,  they  drove  our  names  with  us,  and 
began  the  year  1804  under  the  old  name,  Hayti,  the  land 
of  mountains.  Jt  was  originally  tenanted  by  filibusters, 
French  and  Spanish,  of  the  early  commercial  epochs,  the 
pirates  of  that  day  as  of  ours.  The  Spanish  took  the 
eastern  two  thirds,  the  French  the  western  third  of  the 
island,  and  they  gradually  settled  into  colonies.  The 
French,  to  whom  my  story  belongs,  became  the  pet  colony 
of  the  mother  land.  Guarded  by  peculiar  privilege  &\ 
enrichedbythe  scions  of  wealthy  houses,  aided  by  the 
unmatched  fertility  of  the  soil,  it  soon  was  tlm  fl'<"l?est,  crom 
in  the  Bourbon  crown  ;  and  at  the  period  to  which  I  call 
your  attention,  about  the  era  of  our  Constitution,  1789, 
its  wealth  was  almost  incredible.  The  effeminacy  of  the 


470  TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE. 

white  race  rivalled  that  of  the  Sybarite  of  antiquity,  while 
the  splendor  of  their  private  life  outshone  Versailles,  and 
their  luxury  found  no  mate  but  in  the  mad  prodigality  of 
the  CaBsars.  At  this  time  the  island  held  about  thirty 
thousand  whites,  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  mulattoes, 
and  five  hundred  thousand  slaves.  The  slave-trade  was 
active.  About  twenty-five  thousand  slaves  Were  im 
ported  annually ;  and  this  only  sufficed  to  fill  the  gap 
which  the  murderous  culture  of  sugar  annually  pro 
duced.  The  mulattoes,  as  with  us,  were  children  of 
the  slaveholders,  but,  unlike  us,  the  French  slaveholder 
never  forgot  his  child  by  a  bondwoman.  He  gave  him 
everything  but  his  name,  —  wealth,  rich  plantations, 
gangs  of  slaves ;  sent  him  to  Paris  for  his  education, 
summoned  the  best  culture  of  France  for  the  instruc 
tion  of  his  daughters,  so  that  in  1790  the  mulatto  race 
held  one  third  of  the  real  estate  and  one  quarter  of  the 
personal  estate  of  the  island.  But  though  educated  and 
rich,  he  bowed  under  the  same  yoke  as  with  us.  Sub 
jected  to  special  taxes,  he  could  hold  no  public  office,  and, 
if  convicted  of  any  crime,  was  punished  with  double 
severity.  His  son  might  not  sit  on  the  same  seat  at  school 
with  a  white  boy ;  he  might  not  enter  a  church  where  a 
white  man  was  worshipping ;  if  he  reached  a  town  on 
horseback,  he  must  dismount  and  lead  his  horse  by  the 
bridle  ;  and  when  ke  died,  even  his  dust  could  not  rest  in 
the  same  soil  with  a  white  body.  Such  was  the  white 
ce  and  the  mulatto,  — the  thin  film  of  a  civilization  be 
neath  which  surged  the  dark  mass  of  five  hundred  thou- 
and  slaves. 

..     It  was  over  such  a  population,  —  the  white  man  melted 
rtiiy  sensuality :  the  mulatto  feeling  all  the  more  keenly  $ns 
degradation  from  the  very  wealth  and  culture  heenjoyed ; 
the  slave,  sullen  and  indifferent,  heeding  not  tlie  quarrels 
or  th o  changes  of  the  upper  air,  —  it  was  over  this  popu- 


I 


T0USSAFNT   L'OUVERTURE.  471 

t 

tion  that  th(^rf>   bnrs{t  in    1J89,  tllG    t]^rif1or-sfr|pn .nf  the 

French  Revoliitkm.     The  first  words  which  reached  the 


islandwere  the  motto  of  the  Jacobin  Club,  — "  Liberty, 
Equality."  The  white  man  heard  them  aghast.  He  had  ~ 
read  of  the  streets  of  Paris  running  bloxxL.  The  slave-^ ff  fJ 
heard  them  with  indifference ;  it  was  a  quarrel  in  the 
upper  air,  between  other  races,  which  did  not  concern 
him.  The  mulatto  heard  them  with  a  welcome  which  no 
dread  of  other  classes  could  quell.  Hastily  gathered  into 
conventions,  they  sent  to  Paris  a  committee  of  the  whole 
body,  laid  at  the  feet  of  the  National  Convention  the  free 
gift  of  six  millions  of  francs,  pledged  one  fifth  of  their 
annual  rental  toward  the  payment  of  the  national  debt, 
and  only  asked  in  return  that  this  yoke  of  civil  and  social 
contempt  should  be  lifted  from  their  shoulders. 

You  may  easily  imagine  the  temper  in  which  Mirabeatl 
and  Lafayette  welcomed  this  munificent  gift  of  the  free 
mulattoes  of  the  West  Indies,  and  in  which  the  petition 
for  equal  civil  rights  was  received  by  a  body  which  had 
just  resolved  that  all  men  were  equal.  The  Convention 
hastened  to  express  its  gratitude,  and  issued  a  decree  which 
commences  th'usT""tt"AlI  JreeborriT  Frenofi  citizens  are_eqiiai 
fiefore_ the  law. ' '_  Oge  was  selected  —  the  friend  of  La 
fayette,  a  lieutenant-colonel  in  the  Dutch  service,  the  son  of 
a  wealthy  mulatto  woman,  educated  in  Paris,  the  comrade 
of  all  the  leading  French  Republicans  —  to  carry  the  decree 
and  the  message  of  French  Democracy  to  the  island.  He 
landed.  The  decree  of  the  National  Convention  was  laid 
on  the  table  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  island.  One 
old  planter  seized  it,  tore  it  in  fragments,  and  trampled  it 
under  his  feet,  swearing  by  all  the  saints  in  the  calendar 
that  the  island  might  sink  before  they  would  share  their 
rights  with  bastards.  They  took  an  old  mulatto,  worth  a  i 
million,  who  had  simply  asked  for  his  rights  under  that 
decree,  and  hung  him.  A  white  lawyer  of  seventy,  who 


472  TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE. 

drafted  the  petition,  they  hung  at  his  side.  They  took 
Oge^  broke  him  on  the  wheel,  ordered  him  to  be  drawn 
and  quartered,  and  one  quarter  of  his  body  to  be  hung  up 
in  each  of  the  four  principal  cities  of  the  island  ;  and  then 

v  •    ,    they  adjourned. 

You  can  conceive  better  than  I  can  describe  the  mood 
in  which  Mirabeau  and  Danton  received  the  news  that 
their  decree  had  been  torn  in  pieces  and  trampled  under 
foot  by  the  petty  legislature  of  an  island  colony,  and  their 
comrade  drawn  and  quartered  by  the  orders  of  its  Gov 
ernor.  Robespierre  rushed  to  the  tribune  and  shouted, 
"  Perish  the  colonies  rather  than  sacrifice  one  iota  of  our 
/principles  !  "  The  Convention  reaffirmed  their  decree,  and 

•/  /    sent  it  out  a  second  time  to  be  executed. 

/l^  But  it  was  not  then  as  now,  when  steam  has  married  the 
Y**Tontinents.  It  took  months  to  communicate  ;  and  while 
this  news  of  the  death  of  Ogd  and  the  defiance  of  the  Na 
tional  Convention  was  going  to  France,  and  the  answer 
returning,  great  events  had  taken  place  in  the  island  itself. 
The  Spanish  or  the  eastern  section,  perceiving  these  divis 
ions,  invaded  the  towns  of  the  western,  and  conquered 
many  of  its  cities.  One  half  of  the  slaveholders  were. 
Republicans,  in  love  with  the  new  constellation  which  had 
just  gone  up  in  our  Northern  sky,  seeking  to  be  admitted 
a  State  in  this  ^Republic,  plotting  for  annexation.  The 
other  half  were  loyalists,  anxious,  deserted  as  they  sup 
posed  themselves  by  the  Bourbons,  to  make  alliance  with 
George  III*  They  sent  to  Jamaica,  and  entreated  its 
Governor  to  assist  them  in  their  intrigue.  At  first,  he 
lent  them  only  a  few  hundred  soldiers.  Some  time  later, 
General  Howe  and  Admiral  Parker  were  sent  with  sev 
eral  thousand  men,  and  finally,  the  English  government 
entering  more  seriously  into  the  plot,  General  Maitland 
landed  with  four  thousand  Englishmen  on  the  north  side 
af  the  island,  and  gained  many  successes.  The  mulattoea 


TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE.  473 

were  in  the  mountains,  awaiting  events.  They  distrusted 
the  government,  which  a  few  years  before  they  had  assisted 
to  put  down  an  insurrection  of  the  whites,  and  which  had 
forfeited  its  promise  to  grant  them  civil  privileges.  De 
serted  by  both  sections,  Blanchelande,  the  Governor,  had 
left  the  capital,  and  fled  for  refuge  to  a  neighboring  city. 

In  this  state  of  affairs,  the  second  decree  reached  the 
island.  The  whites  forgot  their  quarrel,  sought  out 
Blanchelande,  and  obliged  him  to  promise  that  he  never 
would  publish  the  decree.  Affrighted,  the  Governor  con 
sented  to  that  course,  and  they  left  him.  He  then  began 
to  reflect  that  in  reality  he  was  deposed,  that  the  Bour 
bons  had  lost  the  sceptre  of  the  island.  He  remembered 
his  successful  appeal  to  the  mulattoes,  five  years,  before,  to 
put  down  an  insurrection.  Deserted  now  by  the  whites 
and  by  the  mulattoes,  only  one  force  was  left  him  in  the 
island,  —  that  was  the  blacks  :  they  had  always  remembered 


with  gratitude  the  code  noirjjdackjzode,  of  Louis  XIV., 
the  first  interference  of  any  power  in  their  behalf.  To 
the  blacks  Blanchelande  appealed.  He  sent  a  deputation 
to  the  slaves.  He  was  aided  by  the  agents  of  Count 
d'Artbis,  afterward  Charles  X.,  who  was  seeking  to  do  in 
St.  Domingo  what  Charles  II.  did  in  Virginia,  (whence 
its  name  of  Old  Dominion,)  institute  a  reaction  against 
the  rebellion  at  home.  The  two  joined  forces,  and  sent 
first  to  Toussaint.  ..Nature  made  him  a  Metternich,  a  di 
plomatist.  He  probably  wishecT  to  avail  himself  of  this 
offer,  foreseeing  advantage  to  his  race,  but  to  avail  himself 
of  it  so  cautiously  as  to  provide  against  failure,  risking  as 
little  as  possible  till  the  intentions  of  the  other  party  had 
been  tested,  and  so  managing  as  to  be  able  to  go  on  or 
withdraw  as  the  best  interest  of  his  race  demanded.  He 
had  practised  well  the  Greek  rule,  "  Know  thyself,"  and 
thoroughly  studied  his  own  part.  Later  in  life,  when  criti 
cising  his  great  mulatto  rival,  Rigaud,  he  showed  how 


474  TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE. 

well  he  knew  himself.     "I  know  Rigaud,"  he  said;  "he 
drops  the  bridle  when  he  gallops,  he  shows  his  arm  when 
he   strikes.     For  me,  I  gallop  also,   but  know  where   to 
stop:  when  I  strike  I  am  felt,  not  seen.     Rigaud  works 
only  by  blood  and  massacre.     I  know  how  to  put  the  peo 
pie  in  movement:  but  when  I  appear,  all  must  be  calm." 
He  said,  therefore,  to  the  envoys,    "Where  are  your 
credentials  ?  "     "  We  have  none."     "  I  will  have  nothino- 

o 

to  do  with  you."  They  then  sought  Francois  and  Bias- 
sou,  two  other  slaves  of  strong  passions,  considerable  intel 
lect,  and  great  influence  over  their  fellow-slaves,  and  said, 
"  Arm,  assist  the  government,  put  down  the  English  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  Spanish  on  the  other  "  ;  and  on  the 
21st  of  August,  1791,  fifteen  thousand  blacks,  led  by 
Francois  and  Biassou,  supplied  with  arms  from  the  arsenal 
of  the  government,  appeared  in  the  midst  of  the  colony. 
It  is  believed  that  Toussaint,  unwilling  himself  to  head  the 
movement,  was  still  desirous  that  it  should  go  forward, 
trusting,  as  proved  the  case,  that  it  would  result  in  benefit 
to  his  race.  He  is  supposed  to  have  advised  Francois  in 
his  course,  —  saving  himself  for  a  more  momentous  hour. 

This  is  what  Edward  Everett  calls  the  Insurrection  of 
St.  Domingo.  It  bore  for  its  motto  on  one  side  of  its  ban 
ner,  "  Long  live  the  King "  ;  and  on  the  other,  "  We 
claim  the  Old  Laws."  Singular  mottoes  for  a  rebellion  ! 
In  fact,  it  was  the  posse  comitatus ;  it  was  the  only  French 
army  on  the  island ;  it  was  the  only  force  that  had  a  right 
to  bear  arms  ;  and  what  it  undertook,  it  achieved.  It  put- 
Blanchelande  in  his.  seat ;  it  put  the  island  beneath  his 
rule.  When  it  was  done,  the  blacks  said  to  the  Governor 
they  had  created,  "  Now,  grant  us  one  day  in  seven  ;  give 
us  one  day's  labor ;  we  will  buy  another,  and  with  the  two 
buy  a  third,"  —  the  favorite  method  of  emancipation  at 
that  time.  Like  the  Blanchelande  of  five  years  before, 
he  refused.  He  said,  "  Disarm !  Disperse  !  "  and  the 


TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE.  475 

blacks  answered,  "  The  right  hand  that  has  saved  you,  the 
right  hand  that  has  saved  the  island  for  the  Bourbons,  may 
perchance  clutch  some  of  our  own  rights"  ;  and  they  stood 
still.  [Cheering.]  This  is  the  first  insurrection,  if  any 
such  there  were  in  St.  Domingo,  —  the  first  determined 
purpose  on  the  part  of  the  negro,  having  saved  the  govern 
ment,  to  save  himself. 

Now  let  me  stop  a  moment  to  remind  you  of  one  thing. 
I  am  about  to  open  to  you  a  chapter  of  bloody  history,  — 
no  doubt  of  it.  Who  set  the  example  ?  Who  dug  up 
from  its  grave  of  a  hundred  years  the  hideous  punishment 
of  the  wheel,  and  broke  Oge,  every  bone,  a  living  man  ? 
Who  flared  in  the  face  of  indignant  and  astonished  Europe 
the  forgotten  barbarity  of  quartering  the  yet  palpitating 
body?  Our  race.  And  if  the  black  man  learned  the  les 
son  but  too  well,  it  does  not  lie  in  our  lips  to  complain. 
"During  this  whole  struggle,  the  record  is,  —  written,  mark 
you,  by  the  white  man,  —  the  whole  picture  from  the  pen 
cil  of  the  white  race,  —  that  for  one  life  the  negro  took  in 
battle,  in  hot  and  bloody  fight,  the  white  race  took,  in  the 
cool  malignity  of  reverfge,  three  to  answer  for  it.  Notice, 
also,  that  up  to  this  moment  the  slave  had  taken  no  part  /I 
in  the  struggle,  except  at  the  bidding  of  the  government  ^  f\j\ 
and  even  then,  not  for  himself,  but  only  to  sustain  th^  /  / 
laws.  ]J  *- 

At  this  moment,  then,  the  island  stands  thus :  The 
Spaniard  is  on  the  east  triumphant ;  the  Englishman  is 
on  the  northwest  intrenched;  the  mulattoes  are  in  the 
mountains  waiting ;  the  blacks  are  in  the  valleys  victo 
rious  ;  one  half  the  French  slaveholding  element  is  re 
publican,  the  other  half  royalist ;  the  white  race  against 
the  mulatto  and  the  black ;  the  black  against  both ;  the 
Frenchman  against  the  English  and  Spaniard ;  the  Span 
iard  against  both.  It  is  a  war  of  races  and  a  war  of 
nations.  At  such  a  moment  Toussaint  1'Ouverture  ap 
peared. 


\       Ay^v 

476  TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE. 

He  had  been  born  a  slave  on  a  plantation  in  the  north 
of  the  island,  —  an  unmixed  negro,  —  his  father  stolen  from 
Africa.,  If  anything,  therefore,  that  I  say  of  him  to-night 
moves  your  admiration,  remember,  the  black  race  claims 
it  all,  —  we  have  no  part  nor  lot  in  it.  He  was  fifty  years 
old  at  this  time.  An  old  negro  had  taught  him  to  read. 
His  favorite  books  were  Epictetus,  Raynal,  Military  Me 
moirs,  Plutarch.  In  the  woods,  he  learned  some  of  the 
qualities  of  herbs,  and  was  village  doctor.  On  the  estate, 
the  highest  place  he  ever  reached  was  that  of  coachman. 
At  fifty,  he  joined  the  army  as  physician.  Before  he 
went,  he  placed  his  master  and  mistress  on  shipboard, 
freighted  the  vessel  with  a  cargo  of  sugar  and  coffee,  and 
sent  them  to  Baltimore,  and  never  afterward  did  he  forget 
to  send  them,  year  by  year,  ample  means  of  support. 
And  I  might  add,  that,  of  all  the  leading  negro  generals, 
each  one  saved  the  man  under  whose  roof  he  was  born, 
and  protected  the  family.  [Cheering.] 

Let  me  add  another  thing.  If  I  stood  here  to-night  to 
tell  the  story  of  Napoleon,  I  should  take  it  from  the  lips 
of  Frenchmen,  who  find  no  language  rich  enough  to  paint 
the  great  captain  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Were  I  here 
to  tell  you  the  story  of  Washington,  I  should  take  it  from 
your  hearts,  —  you,  who  think  no  marble  white  enough  on 
which  to  carve  the  name  of  the  Father  of  his  Country. 
[Applause.]  I  am  about  to  tell  you  the  story  of  a  negro 
who  has  left  hardly  one  written  line.  I  am  to  glean  it 
from  the  reluctant  testimony  of  Britons,  Frenchmen, 
Spaniards,  —  men  who  despised  him  as  a  negro  and  a 
slave,  and  hated  him  because  he  had  beaten  them  in  many 
a  battle.  All  the  materials  for  his  biography  are  from  the 
lips  of  his  enemies. 

The  second  story  told  of  him  is  this.  About  the  time 
he  reached  the  camp,  the  army  had  been  subjected  to  two 
insults.  First,  their  commissioners,  -  summoned  to  meet 


TOUSSAINT    L'OUVERTURE.  477 

the  French  Committee,  were  ignominiously  and  insult 
ingly  dismissed;  and  when,  afterward,  Francois,  their 
general,  was  summoned  to  a  second  conference,  and  went 
to  it  on  horseback,  accompanied  by  two  officers,  a  young 
lieutenant,  who  had  known  him  as  a  slave,  angered  at 
seeing  him  in  the  uniform  of  an  officer,  raised  his  riding- 
whip  and  struck  him  over  the  shoulders.  If  he  had  been 
the  savage  which  the  negro  is  painted  to  us,  he  had  only 
to  breathe  the  insult  to  his  twenty-five  thousand  soldiers, 
and  they  would  have 'trodden  out  the  Frenchmen  in  blood. 
But  the  indignant  chief  rode  back  in  silence  to  his  tent, 
and  it  was  twenty-four  hours  before  his  troops  heard  of 
this  insult  to  their  general.  Then  the  word  went  forth, 
"  Death  to  every  white  man !  "  They  had  fifteen  hun 
dred  prisoners.  Ranged  in  front  of  the  camp,  they  were 
about  to  be  shot.  Toussaint,  who  had  a  vein  of  religious 
fanaticism,  like  most  great  leaders,  —  like  Mohammed,  like 
Napoleon,  like  Cromwell,  like  John  Brown  [cheers], — 
he  could  preach  as  well  as  fight,  —  mounting  a  hillock,  and 
getting  the  ear  of  the  crowd,  exclaimed :  "  Brothers,  this 
blood  will  not  wipe  out  the  insult  to  our  chief;  only  the 
blood  in  yonder  French  camp  can  wipe  it  out.  To 
that  is  courage ;  to  shed  this  is  cowardice  and  cruelty  be 
side  "  ;  —  and  he  saved  fifteen  hundred  lives.  [Applause.] 
I  cannot  stop  to  give  in  detail  every  one  of  his  efforts. 
This  was  in  1793.  Leap  with  me  over  seven  years ;  \ 
come  to  1800  ;  what  has  he  achieved  ?  He  has  driven  ^ 
the  Spaniard  back  into  his  own  cities,  conquered  him 
there,  and  put  the  French  banner  over  every  Spanish 
town  ;  and  for  the  first  time,  and  almost  the  last,  the  island 
obeys  one  law.  He  has  put  the  mulatto  under  his  feet. 
He  has  attacked  Maitland,  defeated  him  in  pitched  battles, 
and  permitted  him  to  retreat  to  Jamaica  ;  and  when  the 
French  army  rose  upon  Laveaux,  their  general,  and  put 
him  in  chains,  Toussaint  defeated  them,  took  Laveaux  out 


478  TOUSSAINT  L'OUVERTURE. 

of  prison,  and  put  him  at  the  head  of  his  own  troops.  The 
grateful  French  in  return  named  him  General-in-Chief. 
Cet  homme  fait  Vouverture  partout,  said  one, —  "  This  man 
makes  an  opening""  everywhere," — hence  his  soldiers 
named  him  L'Ouverture,  the  opening. 

This  was  the  work  of  seven  years.  Let  us  pause  a 
moment,  and  find  something  to  measure  him  by.  You 
remember  Macaulay  says,  comparing  Cromwell  with  Na 
poleon,  that  Cromwell  showed  the  greater  military  genius, 
if  we  consider  that  he  never  saw  an  army  till  he  was  forty ; 
while  Napoleon  was  educated  from  a  boy  in  the  best  mili 
tary  schools  in  Europe.  Cromwell  manufactured  his  own 
army  ;  Napoleon  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven  was  placed 
at  the  head  of  the  best  troops  Europe  ever  saw.  They 
were  both  successful ;  but,  says  Macaulay,  with  such  dis 
advantages,  the  Englishman  showed  the  greater  genius. 
Whether  you  allow  the  inference  or  not,  you  will  at  least 
grant  that  it  is  a  fair  mode  of  measurement.  Apply  it  to 
Toussairit.  Cromwell  never  saw  an  army  till  he  was 
forty  ;  this  man  never  saw  a  soldier  till  he  was  fifty. 
Cromwell  manufactured  his  own  army  —  out  of  what? 
Englishmen,  —  the  best  blood  in  Europe.  Out  of  the 
middle  class  of  Englishmen,  —  the  best  blood  of  the  island. 
And  with  it  he  conquered  what  ?  Englishmen,  —  their 
equals.  This  man  manufactured  his  army  out  of  what  ? 
Out  of  what  you  call  the  despicable  race  of  negroes,  de 
based,  demoralized  by  two  hundred  years  of  slavery,  one 
hundred  thousand  of  them  imported  into  the  island  within 
four  years,  unable  to  speak  a  dialect  intelligible  even  to 
each  other.  Yet  out  of  this  mixed,  and,  as  you  say,  des 
picable  mass,  he  forged  a  thunderbolt  and  hurled  it  at 
what  ?  At  the  proudest  blood  in  Europe,  the  Spaniard, 
and  sent  him  home  conquered  [cheers]  ;  at  the  most  war 
like  blood  in  Europe,  the  French,  and  put  them  under  his 
feet ;  at  the  pluckiest  blood  in  Europe,  the  English,  and 


TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE.  479 

they  skulked  home  to  Jamaica.  [Applause.]  Now  if 
Cromwell  was  a  general,  at  least  this  man  was  a  soldier. 
I  know  it  was  a  small  territory ;  it  was  not  as  large  as  the 
continent ;  but  it  was  as  large  as  that  Attica,  which,  with 
Athens  for  a  capital,  has  filled  the  earth  with  its  fame  for 
two  thousand  years.  We  measure  genius  by  quality,  not 
by  quantity. 

Further,  —  Cromwell  was  only  a  soldier  ;  his  fame  stops 
there.  Not  one  line  in  the  statute-book  of  Britain  can  be 
traced  to  Cromwell ;  not  one  step  in  the  social  life  of 
England  finds  its  motive  power  in  his  brain.  The  state 
he  founded  went  down  with  him  to  his  grave.  But  this 
man  no  sooner  put  his  hand  on  the  helm  of  state,  than  the 
ship  steadied  with  an  upright  keel,  and  he  began  to  evince 
a  statesmanship  as  marvellous  as  his  military  genius.  His 
tory  says  that  the  most  statesmanlike  act  of  Napoleon  was 
his  proclamation  of  1802,  at  the  peace  of  Amiens,  when, 
believing  that  the  indelible  loyalty  of  a  native-born  heart 
is  always  a  sufficient  basis  on  which  to  found  an  empire, 
he  said  :  "  Frenchmen,  come  home.  I  pardon  the  crimes 
of  the  last  twelve  years  ;  I  blot  out  its  parties  ;  I  found 
my  throne  on  the  hearts  of  all  Frenchmen,"  —  and  twelve 
years  of  unclouded  success  showed  how  wisely  he  judged. 
That  was  in  1802.  In  1800  this  negro  made  a  proclama 
tion  ;  it  runs  thus :  "  Sons  of  St.  Domingo,  come  home.  A  t- 
We  never  meant  to  take  your  houses  or  your  lands.  The  if  \}s  \ 
negro  only  asked  that  liberty  which  God  gave  him.  Your  \ 
houses  wait  for  you  ;  your  lands  are  ready ;  come  and 
cultivate  them  "  ;  —  and  from  Madrid  and  Paris,  from  Bal 
timore  and  New  Orleans,  the  emigrant  planters  crowded 
home  to  enjoy  their  estates,  under  the  pledged  word  that 
was  never  broken  of  a  victorious  slave.  [Cheers.] 

Again,  Carlyle  has  said,  "  The  natural  king  is  one  who 
melts  all  wills  into  his  own."  At  this  moment  he  turned 
to  his  armies,  —  poor,  ill-clad,  and  half-starved,  —  and 


480  TOUSSAINT   L'OUVKRTURE. 

said  to  them  :  Go  back  and  work  on  these  estates  you 
have  conquered  ;  for  an  empire  can  be  founded  only  on 
order  and  industry,  and  you  can  learn  these  virtues  only 
there.  And  they  went.  The  French  Admiral,  who  wit 
nessed  the  scene,  said  that  in  a  week  his  army  melted 
back  into  peasants. 

It  was  1,800.  The  world  waited  fifty  years  before,  in 
1846,  Robert  Peel  dared  to  venture,  as  a  matter  of  prac 
tical  statesmanship,  the  theory  of  free  trade.  Adam 
Smith  theorized,  the  French  statesmen  dreamed,  but  no 
man  at  the  head  of  affairs  had  ever  dared  to  risk  it  as  a 
practical  measure.  Europe  waited  till  1846  before  the 
most  practical  intellect  in  the  world,  the  English,  adopted 
the  great  economic  formula  of  unfettered  trade.  But  in 
1800  this  black,  with  the  instinct  of  statesmanship,  said  to 
the  committee  who  were  drafting  for  him  a  Constitution  : 
"  Put  at  the  head  of  the  chapter  of  commerce  that  the 
ports  of  St.  Domingo  are  open  to  the  trade  of  the  world." 
[Cheers.]  With  lofty  indifference  to  race,  superior  to  all 
envy  or  prejudice,  Toussaint  had  formed  this  committee 
of  eight  white  proprietors  and  one  mulatto,  —  not  a  sol 
dier  nor  a  negro  on  the  list,  although  Haytian  history 
proves  that,  with  the  exception  of  Rigaucl,  the  rarest 
genius  has  always  been  shown  by  pure  negroes. 

Again,  it  was  1800,  at  a  time  when  England  was  poisoned 
on  every  page  of  her  statute-book  with  religious  intoler 
ance,  when  a  man  could  not  enter  the  House  of  Commons 
without  taking  an  Episcopal  communion,  when  every 
State  in  the  Union,  except  Rhode  Island,  was  full  of  the 
intensest  religious  bigotry.  This  man  was  a  negro.  You 
say  that  is  a  superstitious  blood.  He  was  uneducated. 
You  say  that  makes  a  man  narrow-minded.  He  wa.s  a 
Catholic.  Many  say  that  is  but  another  name  for  intoler 
ance.  And  yet  —  negro,  Catholic,  slave  —  he  took  his 
place  by  the  side  of  Roger  Williams,  and  said  to  his  com- 


TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE.  481 

mittee  :  "  Make  it  the  first  line  of  my  Constitution  that  I    /^**  "> 
know   no   difference   between   religious   beliefs."       [Ap 
plause.] 

^Now,  blue-eyed  ^Saxon^proud  of  your  race,  go  back 
with  md~tcrthe  commencement  of  the  century,  and  select 
what  statesman  you  please.  Let  him  be  either  American 
or  European ;  let  him  have  a  brain  the  result  of  six  gen 
erations  of  culture  ;  let  him  have  the  ripest  training  of 
university  routine  ;  let  him  add  to  it  the  better  education 
of  practical  life  ;  crown  his  temples  with  the  silver  of 
seventy  years ;  and  show  me  the  man  of  Saxon  lineage 
for  whom  his  most  sanguine  admirer  will  wreathe  a  laurel 
rich  as  embittered  foes  have  placed  on  the  brow  of  this 
negro,  — rare  military  skill,  profound  knowledge  of  human 
nature,  content  to  blot  out  all  party  distinctions,  and  trust 
a  state  to  the  blood  of  its  sons,  —  anticipating  Sir  Robert 
Peel  fifty  years,  and  taking  his  station  by  the  side  of 
Roger  Williams  before  any  Englishman  or  American  had 
won  the  right ;  —  and  yet  this  is  the  record  which  the 
history  of  rival  states  makes  up  for  this  inspired  black  of 
St.  Domingo.  [Cheers.] 

It  was  1801.  The  Frenchmen  who  lingered  on  the 
island  described  its  prosperity  and  order  as  almost  incred 
ible.  You  might  trust  a  child  with  a  bag  of  gold  to  go 
from  Samana  to  Port-au-Prince  without  risk.  Peace  was 
in  every  household  ;  the  valleys  laughed  with  fertility ;  cul 
ture  climbed  the  mountains ;  the  commerce  of  the  world 
was  represented  in  its  harbors.  {  At  this  time  Europe 
concluded  the  Peace  of  Amiens,  and  Napoleon  took  his 
seat  on  the  throne  of  France.  He  glanced  his  eyes  across 
the  Atlantic,  and,  with  a  single  stroke  of  his  pen,  reduced 
Cayenne  and  Martinique  back  into  chains.  He  then  said 
to  his  Council,  "  What  shall  I  do  with  St.  Domingo  ?  " 
The  slaveholders  said,  "  Give  it  to  us."  Napoleon  turned 
to  the  Abb£  Gregoire,  "  What  is  your  opinion  ?  "  "I 
31 


182  TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE. 

think  those  men  would  change  their  opinions,  if  they 
changed  their  skins."  Colonel  Vincent,  who  had  been 
private  secretary  to  Toussaint,  wrote  a  letter  to  Napoleon, 
in  which  he  said:  "Sire,  leave  it  alone;  it  is  the  happiest 
spot  in  your  dominions ;  God  raised  this  man  to  govern  ; 
races  melt  under  his  hand.  He  has  saved  you  this  island ; 
for  I  know  of  my  own  knowledge  that,  when  the  Repub 
lic  could  not  have  lifted  a  finger  to  prevent  it,  George 
III.  offered  him  any  title  and  any  revenue  if  he  would 
hold  the  island  under  the  British  crown.  He  refused,  and 
saved  it  for  France."  Napoleon  turned  away  from  his 
Council,  and  is  said  to  have  remarked,  "  I  have  sixty 
thousand  idle  troops ;  I  must  find  them  something  to  do." 
He  meant  to  say,  "  I  am  about  to  seize  the  crown  ;  I  dare 
not  do  it  in  the  faces  of  sixty  thousand  republican  soldiers : 
I  must  give  them  work  at  a  distance  to  do."  The  gossip 
of  Paris  gives  another  reason  for  his  expedition  against  St. 
Domingo.  It  is  said  that  the  satirists  of  Paris  had  chris 
tened  Toussaint,  the  Black  Napoleon ;  and  Bonaparte  hated 
his  black  shadow.  Toussaint  had  unfortunately  once  ad 
dressed  him  a  letter,  "  The  first  of  the  blacks  to  the  first 
of  the  whites."  He  did  not  like  the  comparison.  You 
would  think  it  too  slight  a  motive.  But  let  me  remind 
you  of  the  present  Napoleon,  that  when  the  epigrammatists 
of  Paris  christened  his  wasteful  and  tasteless  expense  at 
Versailles,  Soulouquerie,  from  the  name  of  Soulouque,  the 
Black  Emperor,  he  deigned  to  issue  a  specific  order  for 
bidding  the  use  of  the  word.  The  Napoleon  blood  is  very 
sensitive.  So  Napoleon  resolved  to  crush  Toussaint  from 
one  motive  or  another,  from  the  prompting  of  ambition, 
or  dislike  of  this  resemblance.  —  which  was  very  close. 
If  either  imitated  the  other,  it  must  have  been  the  white, 
since  the  negro  preceded  him  several  years.  They 
were  very  much  alike,  and  they  were  very  French, — 
French  even  in  vanity,  common  to  both.  You  remember 


TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE.  483 

Bonaparte's  vainglorious  words  to  his  soldiers  at  the  Pyr 
amids  :  "  Forty  centuries  look  down  upon  us."  In  the 
same  mood,  Toussaint  said  to  the  French  captain  who 
urged  him  to  go  to  France  in  his  frigate,  "  Sir,  your  ship 
is  not  large  enough  to  carry  me."  Napoleon,  you  know, 
could  never  bear  the  military  uniform.  He  hated  the 
restraint  of  his  rank ;  he  loved  to  put  on  the  gray  coat 
of  the  Little  Corporal,  and  wander  in  the  camp.  Tous 
saint  also  never  could  bear  a  uniform.  He  wore  a  plain 
coat,  and  often  the  yellow  Madras  handkerchief  of  the 
slaves.  A  French  lieutenant  once  called  him  a  maggot 
in  a  yellow  handkerchief.  Toussaint  took  him  prisoner 
next  day,  and  sent  him  home  to  his  mother.  Like  Napo 
leon,  he  could  fast  many  days ;  could  dictate  to  three  sec 
retaries  at  once  ;  could  wear  out  four  or  five  horses.  Like./,],  i^ 
Napoleon,  no  man  ever  divined  his  purpose  or  penetrated j  V 
his  plan.  He  was  only  a  negro,  and  so,  in  him,  they  called 
it  hypocrisy.  IrTBonaparte  we  style  it  diplomacy.  For 
instance,  three  attempts  made  to  assassinate  him  all  failed, 
from  f'  t1'~r' ^^"fylj^duj  was- 

in  t 
hoi 

he  would  be  in  the  field  in  a 
carriage  with  ?.»i^! 
side.     The  sevev 
Tl    y  expect 

day;  he  p. 

and,  when  the 
came  down  1" 
permitted  th- 
that  wit  con; 
its  way  in  a  c 

filled  a  large  scattering  six  grains 

of  rice  in  it,  sn%o  *a>id :  "  See,  there  is  the 

white,  there  *  you  afraid  of?"     So 


484  TOUSSAINT  L'OUVEKTURE. 

when  people  came  to  him  in  great  numbers  for  office,  as 
it  is  reported  they  do  sometimes  even  in  Washington,  he 
learned  the  first  words  of  a  Catholic  prayer  in  Latin,  and, 
repeating  it,  would  sa}r,  "  Do  you  understand  that  ? ' 
u  No,  sir."  "  What !  want  an  office,  and  not  know  Latin  ? 
Go  home  and  learn  it !  " 

Then,  again,  like  Napoleon,  — like  genius  always,— 
he  had  confidence  in  his  power  to  rule  men.  You  re 
member  when  Bonaparte  returned  from  Elba,  and  Louis 
XVIII.  sent  an  army  against  him,  Bonaparte  descended 
from  his  carriage,  opened  his  coat,  offering  his  breast  to 
+heir  muskets,  and  saying,  "Frenchmen,  it  is  the  Em 
peror  !  "  and  they  ranged  themselves  behind  him,  his  sol 
diers,  shouting,  "  Vive  rEmpereur!"  That  was  in  1815. 
Twelve  years  before,  Toussaint,  finding  that  four  of  his 
regiments  had  deserted  and  gone  to  Leclerc,  drew  his 
sword,  flung  it  on  the  grass,  went  across  the  field  to  them, 
folded  his  arms,  and  said,  "  Children,  can  you  point  a  bay 
onet  at  me  ?  "  The  blacks  fell  on  their  knees,  praying 
his  pardon.  His  bitterest  enemies  watched  him,  and  none 
of  them  charged  him  with  love  of  money,  sensuality,  or 
cruel  use  of  power.  The  only  instance  in  which  his 
sternest  critic  has  charged  him  with  severity  is  this. 
During  a  tumult,  a  few  white  proprietors  who  had  re 
turned,  trusting  his  proclamation,  were  killed.  His 
nephew,  General  Moise,  was  accused  of  indecision  in 
ii'uViJ!i'irp  **he  riot.  He  assembled  dflgohtrt-martial,  and,  on 
its  verdict,  ordei  -ed  his  own  nephetfr'  to  be  shot,  sternly 
Roman  in  thus  ke  eping  his  promise  of  protection  to  the 
whites.  Above  the  lust  of  gold,  pure  in  private  life,  gen 
erous  in  the  use  of  his  power,  it  was  against  such  a  man  that 
Napoleon  sent  his  ai  my,  giving  to  General  Leclerc,  the 
husband  of  his  beautiful  sister  Pauline,  thirty  thousand 
of  his  best  troops,  \vith  orders  to  rehltroduce  slavery. 
Among  these  soldier^  came  all  of  Toussaint's  old  mulatto 
rivals  and  foes. 


TOUSSAINT  L'OUVERTURE.  485 

Holland  lent  sixty  ships.  England  promised  by  special 
message  to  be  neutral ;  and  you  know  neutrality  means 
sneering  at  freedom,  and  sending  arms  to  tyrants.  [Loud 
and  long-continued  applause.]  England  promised  neu 
trality,  and  the  black  looked  out  on  the  whole  civilized 
world  marshalled  against  him.  America,  full  of  slaves, 
of  course  was  hostile.  Only  the  Yankee  sold  him  poor 
muskets  at  a  very  high  price.  [Laughter.]  Mounting 
his  horse,  and  riding  to  the  eastern  end  of  the  island, 
Samana,  he  looked  out  on  a  sight  such  as  no  native  had 
ever  seen  before.  Sixty  ships  of  the  line,  crowded  by  the 
best  soldiers  of  Europe,  rounded  the  point.  They  were 
soldiers  who  had  never  yet  met  an  equal,  whose  tread, 
like  Caesar's,  had  shaken  Europe,  —  soldiers  who  had 
scaled  the  Pyramids,  and  planted  the  French  banners  on 
the  walls  of  Rome.  He  looked  a  moment,  counted  the 
flotilla,  let  the  reins  fall  on  the  neck  of  his  horse,  and, 
turning  to  Christophe,  exclaimed:  "All  France  is  come 
to  Hayti ;  they  can  only  come  to  make  us  slaves ;  and  we 
are  lost !  "  He  then  recognized  the  only  mistake  of  his 
life,  —  his  confidence  in  Bonaparte,  which  had  led  him  to 
disband  his  army. 

Returning  to  the  hills,  he  issued  the  only  proclamation 
which  bears  his  name  and  breathes  vengeance :  "  My 
children,  France  comes  to  make  us  slaves.  God  gave  us 
liberty ;  France  has  no  right  to  take  it  away.  Burn  the 
cities,  destroy  the  harvests,  tear  up  the  roads  with  cannon, 
poison  the  wells,  show  the  white  man  the  hell  he  comes  to 
make  "  ;  —  and  he  was  obeyed.  [Applause.]  When  the 
great  William  of  Orange  saw  Louis  XIV.  cover  Holland 
with  troops,  he  said,  "  Break  down  the  dikes,  give  Hol 
land  back  to  ocean "  ;  and  Europe  said,  "  Sublime  !  " 
When  Alexander  saw  the  armies  of  France  descend  upon 
Russia,  he  said,  "Burn  Moscow,  starve  back  the  invad 
ers  "  ;  and  Europe  said,  "  Sublime  !  "  This  black  saw  all 


486  TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE. 

Europe  marshalled  to  crush  him,  and  gave  to  his  people 
the  same  heroic  example  of  defiance. 

It  is  true,  the  scene  grows  bloodier  as  we  proceed. 
But,  remember,  the  white  man  fitly  accompanied  his 
infamous  attempt  to  reduce  freemen  to  slavery  with  every 
bloody  and  cruel  device  that  bitter  and  shameless  hate 
could  invent.  Aristocracy  is  always  cruel.  The  black 
man  met  the  attempt,  as  every  such  attempt  should  be 
met,  with  war  to  the  hilt.  In  his  first  struggle  to  gain  his 
freedom,  he  had  been  generous  and  merciful,  saved  lives 
and  pardoned  enemies,  as  the  people  in  every  age  and 
clime  have  always  done  when  rising  against  aristocrats. 
Now,  to  save  his  liberty,  the  negro  exhausted  every 
means,  seized  every  weapon,  and  turned  back  the  hateful 
invaders  with  a  vengeance  as  terrible  as  their  own, 
though  even  now  he  refused  to  be  cruel. 

Leclerc  sent  word  to  Christophe  that  he  was  about  to 
land  at  Cape  City.  Christophe  said,  "  Toussaint  is  gov 
ernor  of  the  island.  I  will  send  to  him  for  permission. 
If  without  it  a  French  soldier  sets  foot  on  shore,  I  will 
burn  the  town,  and  fight  over  its  ashes." 

Leclerc  landed.  Christophe  took  two  thousand  white 
men,  women,  and  children,  and  carried  them  to  the  moun 
tains  in  safety,  then  with  his  own  hands  set  fire  to  the 
splendid  palace  which  French  architects  had  just  finished 
for  him,  and  in  forty  hours  the  place  was  in  ashes.  The 
battle  was  fought  in  its  streets,  and  the  French  driven 
Jback  to  their  boats.  [Cheers.]  Wherever  they  went, 
they  were  met  with  fire  and  sword.  Once,  resisting  an 
attack,  the  blacks,  Frenchmen  born,  shouted  the  Mar 
seilles  Hymn,  and  the  French  soldiers  stood  still ;  they 
could  not  fight  the  Marseillaise.  And  it  was  not  till  their 
officers  sabred  them  oil  that  they  advanced,  and  then 
they  were  beaten.  Beaten  in  the  field,  the  French  then 
took  "to  lies.  They  issued  proclamations,  saying,  "We  do 


TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE.  487 

j 

not  come  to  make  you  slaves;  this  man  Toussaint  tells 
you  lies.  Join  us,  and  you  shall  have  the  rights  you 
claim."  They  cheated  every  one  of  his  officers,  except 
Christophe  and  Dessalines,  and  his  own  brother  Pierre, 
and  finally  these  also  deserted  him,  and  he  was  left  alone. 
He  then  sent  word  to  Leclerc,  "  I  will  submit.  I  could 
continue  the  struggle  for  years,  —  could  prevent  a  single 
Frenchman  from  safely  quitting  your  camp.  But  I  hatejp  J 
bloodshe  1.  I  have  fought  only  for  the  liberty  of  my  race,  ^^ 
Guarantee  that,  I  will  submit  and  come  in."  He  took 
the  oath  to  be  a  faithful  citizen  ;  and  on  the  same  crucifix 
Leclerc  swore  that  he  should  be  faithfully  protected,  and 
that  the  island  should  be  free.  As  the  French  general 
glanced  along  the  line  of  his  splendidly  equipped  troops, 
and  saw,  opposite,  Toussaint's  ragged,  ill-armed  followers, 
he  said  to  him,  "  L'Ouverture,  had  you  continued  the 
war,  where  could  you  have  got  arms ?  "  "I  would  have 
taken  yours,"  was  the  Spartan  reply.  [Cheers.]  He 
went  down  to  his  house  in  peace ;  it  was  summer.  Le 
clerc  remembered  that  the  fever  months  were  coming, 
when  his  army  would  be  in  hospitals,  and  when  one  mo 
tion  of  that  royal  hand  would  sweep  his  troops  into  the 
sea.  He  was  too  dangerous  to  be  left  at  large.  So  they 
summoned  him  to  attend  a  council ;  and  here  is  the  only 
charge  made  against  him,  —  the  only  charge.  They  say  he 
was  fool  enough  to  go.  Grant  it ;  what  was  the  record?  ^ 
The  white  man  lies  shrewdly  to  cheat  the  negro.  Knight-  /\ 
errantry  was  truth.  The  foulest  insult  you  can  offer  a 
man  since  "the-  Crusades  is,  You  lie.  Of  Toussaint,  Her- 
mona,  the  Spanish  general,  who  knew  him  well,  said, 
"  He  was  the  purest  soul  God  ever  put  into  a  body."  Of 
him  history  bears  witness,  "  He  never  broke  his  word." 
Maitland  was  travelling  in  the  depths  of  the  woods  Jto 
meet  Toussaint,  when  he  was  met  by  a  messenger,  and 
told  that  he  was  betrayed.  He  went  on,  and  met  Tous- 


488  TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE. 

saint,  who  showed  him  two  letters,  —  one  from  the  French 
general,  offering  him  any  rank  if  he  would  put  Maitland 
in  his  power,  and  the  other  his  reply.  It  was,  "  Sir,  I 
have  promised  the  Englishman  that  he  shall  go  back." 
[Cheers.]  Let  it  stand,  therefore,  that  the  negro,  truth 
ful  as  a  knight  of  old,  was  cheated  by  his  lying  foe. 
Which  race  has  reason  to  be  proud  of  such  a  record  ? 

But  he  was  not  cheated.  He  was  under  espionage. 
Suppose  he  had  refused:  the  government  woi  Id  have 
doubted  him,  —  would  have  found  some  cause  to  arrest 
him.  He  probably  reasoned  thus  :  "  If  I  go  willingly,  I 
shall  be  treated  accordingly  "  ;  and  he  went.  The  moment 
he  entered  the  room,  the  officers  drew  their  swords,  and 
told  him  he  was  prisoner ;  and  one  young  lieutenant  who 
was  present  says,  "  He  was  not  at  all  surprised,  but  seemed 
very  sad."  They  put  him  on  shipboard,  and  weighed  an 
chor  for  France.  As  the  island  faded  from  his  sight,  he 
turned  to  the  captain,  and  said,  "  You  think  you  have 
rooted  up  the  tree  of  liberty,  but  I  am  only  a  branch ;  I 
have  planted  the  tree  so  deep  that  all  France  can  never 
root  it  up."  [Cheers.]  Arrived  in  Paris,  he  was  flung 
into  jail,  and  Napoleon  sent  his  secretary,  Caffarelli,  to 
him,  supposing  he  had  buried  large  treasures.  He  lis 
tened  awhile,  then  replied,  "  Young  man,  it  is  true  I  have 
ost  treasures,  but  they  are  not  such  as  you  come  to  seek." 
He  was  then  sent  to  the  Castle  of  St.  Joux,  to  a  dungeon 
twelve  feet  by  twenty,  built  wholly  of  stone,  with  a  nar 
row  window,  high  up  on  the  side,  looking  out  on  the  snows 
of  Switzerland.  In  winter,  ice  covers  the  floor ;  in  sum 
mer,  it  is  damp  and  wet.  In  this  living  tomb  the  child  of 
the  sunny  tropic  was  left  to  die.  From  this  dungeon  he 
wrote  two  letters  to  Napoleon.  One  of  them  ran  thus  :  — 

"  Sire,  I  am  a  French  citizen.  I  never  broke  a  law.  By  the 
grace  of  God,  I  have  saved  for  you  the  best  island  of  your  realm. 
Sire,  of  your  mercy  grant  me  justice." 


TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE.  489 

Napoleon  never  answered  the  letters.  The  command 
ant  allowed  him  five  francs  a  day  for  food  and  fuel.  Na 
poleon  heard  of  it,  and  reduced  the  sum  to  three.  The 
luxurious  usurper,  who  complained  that  the  English  gov 
ernment  was  stingy  because  it  allowed  him  only  six  thou 
sand  dollars  a  month,  stooped  from  his  throne  to  cut  down 
a  dollar  to  a  half,  and  still  Toussaint  did  not  die  quick 
enough. 

This  dungeon  was  a  tomb.  The  story  is  told  that,  in 
Josephine's  time,  a  young  French  marquis  was  placed 
there,  and  the  girl  to  whom  he  was  betrothed  went  to  the 
Empress  and  prayed  for  his  release.  Said  Josephine  to 
her,  "  Have  a  model  of  it  made,  and  bring  it  to  me." 
Josephine-  placed  it  near  Napoleon.  He  said,  "  Take  it 
away,  —  it  is  horrible  !  "  She  put  it.  on  his  footstool,  and 
he  kicked  it  from  him.  She  held  it  to  him  the  third  time, 
and  said,  "  Sire,  in  this  horrible  dungeon  you  have  put  a 
man  to  die."  "  Take  him  out,"  said  Napoleon,  and  the 
girl  saved  her  lover.  In  this  tomb  Toussaint  was  buried, 
but  he  did  not  die  fast  enough.  Finally,  the  commandant 
was  told  to  go  into  Switzerland,  to  carry  the  keys  of  the 
dungeon  with  him,  and  to  stay  four  days ;  when  he  re 
turned,  Toussaint  was  found  starved  to  death.  That  im 
perial  assassin  was  taken  twelve  years  after  to  his  prison  at 
St.  Helena,  planned  for  a  tomb,  as  he  had  planned  that  of 
Toussaint,  and  there  he  whined  away  his  dying  hours  in 
pitiful  complaints  of  curtains  and  titles,  of  dishes  and  rides. 
God  grant  that  when  some  future  Plutarch  shall  weigh 
the  great  men  of  our  epoch,  the  whites  against  the  blacks, 
he  do  not  'put  that  whining  child  at  St.  Helena  into  one 
scale,  and  into  the  other  the  negro  meeting  death  like  a 
Roman,  without  a  murmur,  in  the  solitude  of  his  icy- 
dungeon  ! 

^From  the  moment  he  was  betrayed,  the  negroes  began 
to  doubt  the  French,  and  rushed  to  arms.     Soon  every 


490  TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTUBE. 

negro  but  Maurepas  deserted  the  French.  Leclerc  sum 
moned  Maurepas  to  his  side.  He  came,  loyally  bringing 
with  him  five  hundred  soldiers.  Leclerc  spiked  his  epau 
lettes  to  his  shoulders,  shot  him,  and  flung  him  into  the 
sea.  He  took  his  five  hundred  soldiers  on  shore,  shot 
them  on  the  edge  of  a  pit,  and  tumbled  them  in.  Des- 
salines  from  the  mountain  saw  it,  and,  selecting  five  hun 
dred  French  officers  from  his  prisons,  hung  them  on 
separate  trees  in  sight  of  Leclerc's  camp  ;  and  born,  as  I 
was,  not  far  from  Bunker  Hill,  I  have  yet  found  no  reason 
to  think  he  did  wrong.  [Cheers.]  They  murdered 
Pierre  Toussaint's  wife  at  his  own  door,  and  after  such 
treatment  that  it  was  mercy  when  they  killed  her.  Tho 
maddened  husband,  who  had  but  a  year  before  saved  the 
lives  of  twelve  hundred  white  men,  carried  his  next  thou 
sand  prisoners  and  sacrificed  them  on  her  grave. 

The  French  exhausted  every  form  of  torture.  The 
negroes  were  bound  together  and  thrown  into  the  sea ; 
any  one  who  floated  was  shot,  —  others  sunk  with  cannon- 
balls  tied  to  their  feet ;  some  smothered  with  sulphur 
fumes,  —  others  strangled,  scourged  to  death,  gibbeted  ; 
sixteen  of  Toussaint's  officers  were  chained  to  rocks  in 
desert  islands,  —  others  in  marshes,  and  left  to  be  de 
voured  by  poisonous  reptiles  and  insects.  Rochambeau 
sent  to  Cuba  for  bloodhounds.  When  they  arrived,  the 
young  girls  went  down  to  the  wharf,  decked  the  hounds 
with  ribbons  and  flowers,  kissed  their  necks,  and,  seated 
in  the  amphitheatre,  the  women  clapped  their  hands  to  see 
a  negro  thrown  to  these  dogs,  previously  starved  to  rage. 
But  the  negroes  besieged  this  very  city  so  closely  that 
these  same  girls,  in  their  misery,  ate  the  very  hounds  they 
had  welcomed. 

Then  flashed  forth  that  defying  courage  and  sublime 
endurance  which  show  how  alike  all  races  are  when  tried 
^n  the  same  furnace.  The  Roman  wife,  whose  husband 


TOUSSA1NT   L'OUVERTURE.  491 

faltered  when  Nero  ordered  him  to  kill  himself,  seized  the 
dagger,  and,  mortally  wounding  her  own  body,  cried, 
"  Foetus,  it  is  not  hard  to  die."  The  world  records  it 
with  proud  tears.  Just  in  the  same  spirit,  when  a  negro 
colonel  was  ordered  to  execution,  and  trembled,  his  wife 
seized  his  sword,  and,  giving  herself  a  death-wound,  said, 
"  Husband,  death  is  sweet  when  liberty  is  gone." 

The  war  went  on.  Napoleon  sent  over  thirty  thousand 
more  soldiers.  But  disaster  still  followed  his  efforts. 
What  the  sword  did  not  devour,  the  fever  ate  up.  Le- 
clerc  died.  Pauline  carried  his  body  back  to  France. 
Napoleon  met  her  at  Bordeaux,  saying,  "  Sister,  I  gave 
you  an  army,  — you  bring  me  back  ashes."  Rochambeau 
—  the  Rochambeau  of  our  history  —  left  in  command  of 
eight  thousand  troops,  sent  word  to  Dessalines  :  "  When 
I  take  you,  I  will  not  shoot  you  like  a  soldier,  or  hang  you 
like  a  white  man  ;  I  will  whip  you  to  death  like  a  slave." 
Dessalines  chased  him  from  battle-field  to  battle-field, 
from  fort  to  fort,  and  finally  shut  him  up  in  Samana. 
Heating  cannon-balls  to  destroy  his  fleet,  Dessalines  learned 
that  Rochambeau  had  begged  of  the  British  admiral  to 
coyer  his  troops  with  the  English  flag,  and  the  generous 
negro  suffered  the  boaster  to  embark  undisturbed. 

Some  doubt  the  courage  of  the  negro.  Go  to 
and  stand  on  those  fifty  thousand  graves  of  the  best  sol 
diers  France  ever  had,  and  ask  them  what  they  think  of 
the  negro's  sword.  And  if  that  does  not  satisfy  you,  go 
to  France,  to  the  splendid  mausoleum  of  the  Counts  of 
Rochambeau,  and  to  the  eight  thousand  graves  of 'French 
men  who  skulked  home  under  the  English  flag,  and  ask 
them.  And  if  that  does  not  satisfy  you,  come  home,  and 
if  it  had  been  October,  1859,  you  might  have  come  by 
way  of  quaking  Virginia,  and  asked  her  what  she  thought 
of  negro  courage. 

You  mav  also  remember  this,  —  that  we  Saxons  were 


492  TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE. 

slaves  about  four  hundred  years,  sold  with  the  land,  and 
our  fathers  never  raised  a  finger  to  end  that  slavery. 
They  waited  till  Christianity  and  civilization,  till  commerce 
and  the  discovery  of  America,  melted  away  their  chains. 
Spartacus  in  Italy  led  the  slaves  of  Rome  against  the  Em 
press  of  the  world.  She  murdered  him,  and  crucified 
them.  There  never  was  a  slave  rebellion  successful  but 
once,  and  that  was  in  St.  Domingo.  Every  race  has 
been,  some  time  or  other,  in  chains.  But  there  never 
was  a  race  that,  weakened  and  degraded  by  such  chattel 
slavery,  unaided,  tore  off  its  own  fetters,  forged  them  into 
swords,  and  won  its  liberty  on  the  battle-field,  but  one, 
and  that  was  the  black  race  of  St.  Domingo.  God  grant 
that  the  wise  vigor  of  our  government  may  avert  that 
necessity  from  our  land,  —  may  raise  into  peaceful  liberty 
the  four  million  committed  to  our  care,  and  show  under 
democratic  institutions  a  statesmanship  as  far-sighted  as 
that  of  England,  as  brave  as  the  negro  of  Hayti ! 

So  much  for  the  courage  of  the  negro.  Now  look  at 
his  endurance.  In  1805  he  said  to  the  white  men,  "  This 
island  is  ours  ;  not  a  white  foot  shall  touch  it."  Side  by 
side  with  him  stood  the  South  American  republics,  planted 
by  the  best  blood  of  the  countrymen  of  Lope  de  Vega  and 
Cervantes.  They  topple  over  so  often  that  you  could  no 
more  daguerrotype  their  crumbling  fragments  than  you 
could  the  waves  of  the  ocean.  And  yet,  at  their  side,  the 
negro  has  kept  his  island  sacredly  to  himself.  It  is  said 
that  at  first,  with  rare  patriotism,  the  Haytien  government 
ordered  the  destruction  of  all  the  sugar  plantations  remain 
ing,  and  discouraged  its  culture,  deeming  that  the  tempta 
tion  which  lured  the  French  back  again  to  attempt  their 
enslavement.  Burn  over  New  York  to-night,  fill  up  her 
canals,  sink  every  ship,  destroy  her  railroads,  blot  out 
every  remnant  of  education  from  her  sons,  let  her  be 
ignorant  and  penniless,  with  nothing  but  her  hands  to 


TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE.  493 

begin  the  world  again,  —  how  much  could  she  do  in  sixty 
years?  And  Europe,  too,  would  lend  you  money,  but 
she  will  not  lend  Hayti  a  dollar.  Hayti,  from  the  ruins 
of  her  colonial  dependence,  is  become  a  civilized  state,  the 
seventh  nation  in  the  catalogue  of  commerce  with  this 
country,  inferior  in  morals  and  education  to  none  of  the 
West  Indian  isles.  Foreign  merchants  trust  her  courts 
as  willingly  as  they  do  our  own.  Thus  far,  she  has  foiled 
the  ambition  of  Spain,  the  greed  of  England,  and  the 
malicious  statesmanship  of  Calhoun.  Toussaint  made  her 
what  she  is.  In  this  work  there  was  grouped  around  him 
a  score  of  men,  mostly  of  pure  negro  blood,  who  ably 
seconded  his  efforts.  They  were  able  in  war  and  skilful 
in  civil  affairs,  but  not,  like  him,  remarkable  for  that  rare 
mingling  of  high  qualities  which  alone  makes  true  great 
ness,  and  insures  a  man  leadership  among  those  otherwise 
almost  his  equals.  Toussaint  was  indisputably  their  chief. 
Courage,  purpose,  endurance,  —  these  are  the  tests.  He 
did  plant  a  state  so  deep  that  all  the  world  has  not  been 
able  to  root  it  up. 

I  would  call  him  Napoleon,  but  Napoleon  made  his 
way  to  empire  over  broken  oaths  and  through  a  sea  of 
blood.  This  man  never  broke  his  word.  "  No  RETALIA 
TION  "  was  his  great  motto  and  the  rule  of  his  life ;  and 
the  last  words  uttered  to  his  son  in  France  were  these  : 
"  My  boy,  you  will  one  day  go  back  to  St.  Domingo  ;  for 
get  that  France  murdered  your  father."  I  would  call 
him  Cromwell,  but  Cromwell  was  only  a  soldier,  and  the 
state  he  founded  went  down  with  him  into  his  grave.  I 
would  call  him  Washington,  but  the  great  Virginian  held 
slaves.  This  man  risked  his  empire  rather  than  permit 
the  slave-trade  in  the  humblest  village  of  his  dominions. 

You  think  me  a  fanatic  to-night,  for  you  read  history, 
not  with  your  eyes,  but  with  your  prejudices.  But  fifty 
years  hence,  when  Truth  gets  a  hearing,  the  Muse  of  His- 


494  TOUSSAINT   L'OUVERTURE. 

tory  will  put  Phocion  for  the  Greek,  and  Brutus  for  the 
Roman,  Hampden  for  England,  Fayette  for  France,  choose 
Washington  as  the  bright,  consummate  flower  of  our  ear 
lier  civilization,  and  John  Brown  the  ripe  fruit  of  our  noon 
day  [thunders  of  applause],  then,  dipping  her  pen  in  the 
sunlight,  will  write  in  the  clear  blue,  above  them  all,  the 
name  of  the  soldier,  the  statesman,  the  martyr,  TOUSSAINT 
L'OUVERTURE.  [Long-continued  applause.] 


A  METROPOLITAN  POLICE.* 


I  HA  YE  been  requested  to  speak  to  you  to-day  on 
the  subject  of  a  Metropolitan  Police.  That  plan  has 
already  been  presented,  two  or  three  years  ago,  to  this 
community,  and,  of  late,  very  elaborately  and  eloquently 
argued  before  a  committee,  of  the  Legislature,  by  Edward 
L.  Peirce,  Esq.,  and  still  more  comprehensively  and  in 
detail  by  Charles  M.  Ellis,  Esq. ;  but  it  is  one  of  vital 
importance  to  the  welfare  and  progress  of  our  city,  and, 
until  the  object  be  achieved,  it  can  never  be  too  frequently 
considered  and  urged.  Other  cities  have  led  the  way  in 
this  path,  years  ago.  The  capital  of  the  civilized  world, 
London,  many  years  ago,  found  herself  utterly  unable  to 
contend  with  the  evils  of  accumulated  population,  —  found 
municipal  machinery  utterly  inadequate  for  the  security 
of  life  or  property  in  her  streets  ;  and  the  national  gov 
ernment,  by  the  hand  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  assumed  the, 
police  regulation  of  that  cluster  of  towns  which  we  com 
monly  call  London,  though  the  plan  does  not  include  the 
city  proper.  New  York,  on  our  continent,  about  six 
years  ago,  followed  the  example ;  Baltimore  and  Cincin 
nati  have  done  likewise  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  and  so 
also  have  some  of  the  other  Western  cities.  The  experi 
ence  of  all  great  accumulations  of  property  and  population 

*  A  Discourse  delivered  before  the  Twenty-eighth  Congregational  Society, 
in  the  Melodcon,  Boston,  April  5,  1863. 


496  A   METROPOLITAN   POLICE. 

reads  us  a  lesson,  that  the  execution  of  the  laws  therein 
demand  extra  consideration  and  peculiar  machinery.  The 
self-organized  Safety  Committees  of  San  Francisco  and 
other  cities  prove  the  same  fact.  Indeed,  great  cities  are 
nests  of  great  vices,  and  it  has  been  the  experience  of  re 
publics  that  great  cities  are  an  exception  to  the  common 
rule  of  self-governed  communities.  Neither  New  York, 
nor  New  Orleans,  nor  Baltimore  —  none  of  the  great 
cities  —  has  found  the  ballot-box  of  its  individual  voters 
a  sufficient  protection,  through  a  police  organization 
Great  cities  cannot  be  protected  on  the  theory  of  re 
publican  institutions.  We  may  like  it  or  not,  —  seventy 
years  have  tried  the  experiment,  and,  so  far,  it  is  a  fail 
ure  ;  and  if  there  is  no  resource  outside  of  the  city  limits, 
then  a  self-governed  great  city  is,  so  far  as  my  experience 
goes,  the  most  uncomfortable  which  any  man  who  loves 
free  speech  can  live  in.  It  is  no  surprise,  therefore,  that 
we  ask  you  no  longer  to  let  the  police  force  represent  the 
voters  of  Boston.  Hitherto,  the  police  regulations  in  the 
city  of  Boston  have  been  modelled  on  those  of  a  small 
town ;  that  is,  the  inhabitants  themselves  have  called  into 
existence  a  body  of  constables,  in  fact,  to  execute  the  laws 
of  the  State  and  the  by-laws  of  the  city.  Our  text,  in 
presenting  this  subject  to  you,  is  this  :  in  Boston,  as  every 
where  else,  where  large  numbers  are  brought  together 
and  great  masses  of  property  are  found,  a  police  force  ap 
pointed  by  the  voters  of  the  place  cannot  be  relied  on  to 
execute  the  laws ;  and,  in  order  to  secure  their  full  and 
impartial  execution,  it  has  been  found  necessary  else 
where,  and  I  shall  attempt  to  show  you  that  it  is  neces 
sary  here,  to  put  the  control  of  the  police  force  into  other 
hands  than  those  of  the  voters  of  the  place.  That  is  our 
claim,  —  that  the  men  of  the  peninsula,  like  those  of  other 
great  cities,  are  not  to  be  trusted  with  the  execution  of  the 
State  laws,  but  that  executive  power  must  be  based  on 


A   METROPOLITAN  POLICE.  497 

broader  foundations.  Such  a  course  is  no  uncommon  ma 
chinery  in  democratic  institutions.  We  put  the  inter 
pretation  of  the  laws  —  the  judiciary  —  not  into  the  hands 
of  any  local  municipal  body,  but  the  interpretation  of  the 
State  laws  is  in  the  hands  of  persons  appointed  by  the 
whole  State.  I  invoke  the  same  principle  for  their  exe 
cution, —  following  old  republican  precedents,  as  I  shall 
shortly  show. 

In  order  to  sustain  this  claim  before  you,  I  ought  to 
show  three  or  four  things.  First,  that  in  important  par 
ticulars  —  important  particulars  —  the  law  has  failed  of 
execution ;  that  good  and  vitally  important  laws  have 
failed  of  execution.  Secondly,  I  ought  to  show  you  that 
this  failure  is  due  to  the  machinery  which  the  city  puts  in 
motion  for  the  execution  of  the  laws.  Thirdly,  that  a  bet 
ter  machinery  may  be  found.  And,  fourthly,  that  it  is 
important  for  the  welfare  of  the  State  that  the  attempt  to 
find  a  better  machinery  should  be  made. 

My  first  point  is  to  show  you  that  in  important  particu 
lars,  where  great  and  grave  interests  are  involved,  the  laws 
have  failed  of  execution.  You  perceive  that  this  involves, 
in  fact,  an  indictment  against  the  city  government.  It  is, 
in  reality,  arraigning  the  government  of  the  city  for  failure 
to  do  its  duty.  Before  I  pass  to  it,  therefore,  let  me  make 
one  protest.  I  do  not  come  here  to  find  fault  with  indi 
vidual  policemen.  I  think  our  body  of  police  is  as  good, 
on  the  average,  as  that  of  any  great  city  I  know.  I  think 
upon  all  trying  occasions  they  have  done  their  duty,  as  far 
as  they  have  been  permitted,  and  have  always  shown  full 
capacity  to  do  their  whole  duty.  Neither  do  I  come  here 
to  arraign  the  individuals  of  the  city  government ;  not, 
however,  on  account  of  the  same  excuse,  but  because  I 
deem  it  unnecessary.  They  are  mere  puppets,  fluttering 
before  us  for  a  little  while  ;  they  are  only  victims  of  a 
great  system,  which  they  did  not  originate  and  cannot  con- 


498  A   METROPOLITAN   POLICE. 

trol.  Looking  over  the  last  dozen  years,  considering  that 
the  Mayor  and  Aldermen  during  those  years  have  been, 
in  the  aggregate,  only  a  standing  committee  appointed  by 
the  grog-shops  of  the  peninsula,  it  has  been  no  honor,  but 
a  shame,  to  hold  one  of  those  offices.  No  man  with  a  full 
measure  of  self-respect  could  accept  such  an  office.  All 
politics  necessitates  questionable  compliances  ;  but  this 
serfdom  touches  a  base  depth.  It  is  not  however  neces 
sary,  and  certainly  not  within  my  plan  to-day,  to  arraign  in 
dividuals.  I  am  merely  criticising  a  system  which  throws 
up  into  unfitting  places  and  undue  importance  men  who 
have  no  real  right  to  the  power  which  they  are  wholly 
unable  or  unwilling  to  use. 

To  return  now  to  my  first  point,  I  am  to  show  you  that, 
in  many  important  particulars,  the  laws  have  failed  of  exe 
cution.  I  shall  take,  in  the  first  place,  temperance.  Some 
men  look  upon  this  temperance  cause  as  whining  bigotry, 
narrow  asceticism,  or  a  vulgar  sentimentality,  fit  for  little 
minds,  weak  women,  and  weaker  men.  On  the  contrary, 
I  regard  it  as  second  only  to  one  or  two  others  of  the  pri 
mary  reforms  of  this  age,  and  for  this  reason.  Every  race 
has  its  peculiar  temptation  ;  every  clime  has  its  specific  sin. 
The  tropics  and  tropical  races  are  tempted  to  one  form 
of  sensuality ;  the  colder  and  temperate  regions,  and  our 
Saxon  blood,  find  their  peculiar  temptation  in  the  stimulus 
of  drink  and  food.  In  old  times  our  heaven  was  a  drunken 
revel.  We  relieve  ourselves  from  the  over-weariness  of 
constant  and  exhausting  toil  by  intoxication.  Science  has 
brought  a  cheap  means  of  drunkenness  within  the  reach 
of  every  individual.  National  prosperity  and  free  institu 
tions  have  put  into  the  hands  of  almost  every  workman  the 
means  of  being  drunk  for  a  week  on  the  labor  of  two  or 
three  hours.  With  that  blood  and  that  temptation,  we 
have  adopted  democratic  institutions,  where  the  law  has 
no  sanction  but  the  purpose  and  virtue  of  the  masses.  The 


A   METROPOLITAN   POLICE.  499 

statute-book  rests  not  on  bayonets,  as  in  Europe,  but  on 
the  hearts  of  the  people.  A  drunken  people  can  never  be 
the  basis  of  a  free  government.  It  is  the  corner-stone 
neither  of  virtue,  prosperity,  nor  progress.  To  us,  there 
fore,  the  title-deeds  of  whose  estates  and  the  safety  of 
whose  lives  depend  upon  the  tranquillity  of  the  streets, 
upon  the  virtue  of  the  masses,  the  presence  of  any  vice 
which  brutalizes  the  average  mass  of  mankind,  and  tends 
to  make  it  more  readily  the  tool  of  intriguing  and  corrupt 
leaders,  is  necessarily  a  stab  at  the  very  life  of  the  nation. 
Against  such  a  vice  is  marshalled  the  Temperance  Refor 
mation.  That  my  sketch  is  no  mere  fancy  picture,  every 
one  of  you  knows.  Every  one  of  you  can  glance  back 
over  your  own  path,  and  count  many  and  many  a  one 
among  those  who  started  from  the  goal  at  your  side,  with 
equal  energy  and  perhaps  greater  promise,  who  has  found 
a  drunkard's  grave  long  before  this.  The  brightness  of 

O  O  O 

the  bar,  the  ornament  of  the  pulpit,  the  hope  and  blessing 
and  stay  of  many  a  family,  —  you  know,  every  one  of  you 
who  has  reached  middle  life,  how  often  on  your  path  you 
set  up  the  warning,  "  Fallen  before  the  temptations  of 
the  streets  !  "  Hardly  one  house  in  this  city,  whether  it 
be  full  and  warm  with  all  the  luxury  of  wealth,  or  whether 
it  find  hard,  cold  maintenance  by  the  most  earnest  econ 
omy,  no  matter  which, —  hardly  a  house  that  does  not 
count,  among  sons  or  nephews,  some  victim  of  this  vice. 
The  skeleton  of  this  warning  sits  at  every  board.  The 
whole  world  is  kindred  in  this  suffering.  The  country 
mother  launches  her  boy  with  trembling  upon  the  tempta 
tions  of  city  life  ;  the  father  trusts  his  daughter  anxiously 
to  the  young  man  she  has  chosen,  knowing  what  a  wreck 
intoxication  may  make  of  the  house-tree  they  set  up. 
Alas  !  how  often  are  their  worst  forebodings  more  than 

O 

fulfilled  !  I  have  known  a  case  —  and  probably  many  of 
you  can  recall  some  almost  equal  to  it — where  one  worthy 


500  A   METROPOLITAN   POLICE. 

woman  could  count  father,  brother,  husband,  and  son-in 
law,  all  drunkards,  —  no  man  among  her  near  kindred, 
except  her  son,  who  was  not  a  victim  of  this  vice.  Like 
all  other  appetites,  this  finds  resolution  weak  when  set 
against  the  constant  presence  of  temptation.  This  is  the 
evil.  How  are  the  laws  relating  to  it  executed  in  this 
city  ?  Let  me  tell  you. 

First,  there  has  been  great  discussion  of  this  evil,  — 
wide,  earnest,  patient  discussion,  for  thirty-five  years. 
The  whole  community  has  been  stirred  by  the  discussion 
of  this  question.  Finally,  after  various  experiments,  the 
majority  of  the  State  decided  that  the  method  to  stay  this 
evil  was  to  stop  the  open  sale  of  intoxicating  drink.  They 
left  moral  suasion  still  to  address  the  individual,  and  set 
themselves  as  a  community  to  close  the  doors  of  tempta 
tion.  Every  man  acquainted  with  his  own  nature  or  with 
society  knows  that  weak  virtue,  walking  through  our 
streets,  and  meeting  at  every  tenth  door  (for  that  is  the 
average)  the  temptation  to  drink,  must  fall ;  that  one 
must  be  a  moral  Hercules  to  stand  erect.  To  prevent 
the  open  sale  of  intoxicating  liquor  has  been  the  method 
selected  by  the  State  to  help  its  citizens  to  be  virtuous ; 
in  other  words,  the  State  has  enacted  what  is  called  the 
Maine  Liquor  Law, — the  plan  of  refusing  all  licenses  to  sell, 
to  be  drunk  on  the  spot  or  elsewhere,  and  allowing  only 
an  official  agent  to  sell  for  medicinal  purposes  and  the 
arts.  You  may  drink  in  your  own  parlors,  you  may  make 
what  indulgence  you  please  your  daily  rule,  the  State  does 
not  touch  you  there ;  there  you  injure  only  yourself,  and 
those  you  directly  influence ;  that  the  State  cannot  reach. 
But  when  you  open  your  door  and  say  to  your  fellow-citi 
zens,  "  Come  and  indulge,"  the  State  has  a  right  to  ask, 
"  In  what  do  you  invite  them  to  indulge  ?  Is  it  in  something 
that  helps,  or  something  that  harms,  the  community  ?  " 

I  will  try  to  show  you,  in  a  moment,  on  what  grounds 


A  METROPOLITAN  POLICE.  501 

the  State  decided  that  these  numberless  open  doors  harmed 
the  community,  and  that  the  method  to  be  adopted  was  to 
shut  them  up.  The  majority,  after  full  argument  in  dis 
trict  school-houses,  the  streets,  and  the  State-House,  from 
pulpits,  lyceum  platforms,  and  everywhere  else,  decided 
that  prohibition  of  the  traffic  was  the  only  effective  method. 
The  law  was  put  upon  the  statute-book.  A  reluctant  mi 
nority  went  to  the  Legislature,  and  endeavored  to  repeal 
or  amend  it,  alleging  that  this  was  not  a  good  law ;  and 
they  were  voted  down.  Again  they  went,  —  were  voted 
down.  A  third  time  they  went,  —  and  were  voted  down. 
They  then  appealed  to  the  courts,  and  said,  "  This  is  not  a 
constitutional  law."  The  courts  said,  "  It  is."  If  anything 
ever  had  the  decided,  unmistakable  sanction  of  a  majority 
of  the  people  of  this  Commonwealth,  the  Maine  Liquor  Law 
has  it.  After  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  discussion,  it  was 
enacted ;  three  times  assailed,  it  was  maintained ;  subjected 
to  the  crucible  of  the  court,  it  came  out  pure  gold.  We 
have  a  right  to  say  that  it  is  the  matured,  settled  purpose 
of  the  majority  of  the  Commonwealth  ;  if  the  majority  have 
a  right  to  govern,  that  law  is  to  govern.  Is  it  not  so  ?  If 
not,  let  the  minority  assail  again  the  Gibraltar  of  the  statute. 
But  meanwhile  it,  like  all  other  laws  not  immoral,  is  to  be 
obeyed.  I  have  not,  therefore,  to  argue  to-day  whether 
the  law  is  good  or  not,  whether  it  is  wise  or  not.  That  is 
settled.  It  is  good  and  wise  in  the  opinion  of  the  Com 
monwealth.  The  era  of  public  opinion  is  finished,  that  of 
law  has  commenced.  This  is  the  history  of  all  legislation. 
Do  not  find  fault  with  us  for  enacting,  in  due  time,  public 
opinion  into  a  statute.  Where  did  all  statutes  come  from  / 
Hundreds  of  years  ago,  men  argued  the  question,  "  Shall 
one  man  own  a  separate  piece  of  land  ?  "  They  argued 
it,  and  settled  that  he  should.  That  became  a  statute. 
They  then  began  to  argue  the  question,  "  Shall  he  trans 
mit  to  his  children  by  will  ?  "  They  argued  that  for  cen- 


502  A   METROPOLITAN   POLICE. 

turies,  then  said,  "  Yes,"  and  enacted  it.  Nobody  now 
goes  behind  those  statutes.  Hundreds  of  years  ago,  our 
race  argued  the  question,  "  Shall  a  man  have  one  wife  or 
three?"  We  settled  that  he  should  have  but  one ;  it  is 
the  law  of  the  Commonwealth. 

The  era  of  discussion  and  opinion  is  over  ;  the  era  of 
legislation  has  come,  —  the  time  when  the  minority  sits 
down  and  obeys.  With  all  great  questions,  covering  im 
portant  interests,  there  is  a  time  when  public  opinion 
stereotypes  itself  into  statutes.  Land,  harvests,  marriage, 
the  laws  against  burglary  and  theft,  settled  themselves 
years  ago.  If  I  raise  a  harvest,  it  is  mine  ;  that  is  the 
law  of  the  land.  There  was  a  time  when  it  was  a  ques 
tion  ;  it  is  not  a  question  now.  So  with  temperance  and 
the  Maine  Liquor  Law.  Time  was  when  the  question 
whether  a  man  had  a  right  to  sell  liquor  openly,  licensed 
or  not,  was  discussed  ;  we  have  passed  that  point,  and 
reached  the  time  when  the  majority  —  in  other  words,  the 
State  —  decrees  that  these  shops  shall  be  shut. 

Now  let  me  show  you,  in  a  few  words,  wliy  it  should 
decree  that.  In  order  more  clearly  to  show  this,  let  me 
go  back  a  little,  and  ask  how  did  the  Mayor  and  Alder 
men,  the  City,  meet  this  Maine  Liquor  Law  ?  They  said, 
"•You  may  decree  it  if  you  please,  we  won't  execute  it. 
You  say  we  shall  not  license  anybody,  but  we  will  effect 
the  same  thing,  for  we  will  let  everybody  sell,  except  just 
those  whom  we  should  not  have  licensed."  These  are 
the  exact  words  of  the  order  to  the  police  some  years 
ago.  The  Chief  of  Police  replied  to  a  question  from  the 
Massachusetts  Temperance  Society,  "  We  have  directions 
never  to  prosecute  a  liquor-seller,  unless  he  be  one  who 
would  not  have  received  a  license  under  the  old  license 
act."  In  other  words,  the  State  says,  "  On  mature  con 
sideration,  I  prohibit  the  sale."  The  City  says,  "  I  shall 
allow  it,  —  help  yourself  !  "  Those  whom  it  would  not 


A  METROPOLITAN   POLICE  503 

have  licensed  are  "  nuisances,"  as  it  calls  them ;  —  houses 
vulgar,  noisy,  disorderly ;  kept,  as  the  Dogberry  of  the 
Board  of  Aldermen  told  us  at  the  State  House,  by 
"imbecile  old  men  and  ancient  women,"  —  as  the  con 
stable  of  Shakespeare's  play  arrested  all  "  vagrom  men." 
That  is  the  position  of  the  city.  The  law  is  intentionally 
and  avowedly  set  aside.  The  city  government  announces 
that  it  does  not  intend  to  obey  it ;  makes  no  effort,  and 
never  has  made  any,  to  enforce  it.  What  is  the  result  ? 
The  result  is,  that  there  are  at  least  three  thousand  places 
in  the  city  where  liquor  is  publicly  and  continually  sold. 
These  consist  partly  of  dram-shops,  partly  of  gambling 
saloons,  partly  of  houses  of  prostitution.  They  number  in 
all  more  than  three  thousand.  I  am  giving  an  under  esti 
mate  of  an  average  for  two  or  three  years.  What  are  the 
results  of  these  three  thousand  places  of  sale  ?  Eight  mil 
lion  dollars'  worth  of  liquor  is  sold  in  this  city  for  retail 
trade,  annually ;  and  three  million  dollars'  worth  is  annu 
ally  retailed  on  the  peninsula.  With  what  result  ?  With 
this.  They  produce  poverty  and  crime  to  this  extent :  — 
We  arrest  for  drunkenness  alone,  on  an  average  for  the  last 
three  years,  about  seventeen  thousand  persons  annually ; 
that  is,  a  little  less  than  one  tenth  of  the  population. 
There  are  between  twenty-five  and  thirty  thousand  per 
sons  relieved  for  poverty  by  overseers  of  the  poor,  and  by 
the  Provident  Association,  —  poverty  caused  by  intemper 
ance.  That  is,  every  seventh  man  in  the  city  is  a  pauper, 
helped  by  the  community ;  every  tenth  man  in  the  city  is 
a  criminal,  arrested  by  the  police.  Let  us  look  at  that  a 
moment.  I  say  every  seventh  man  is  a  pauper,  relieved 
by  the  help  of  the  community.  Poverty,  wholesome 
poverty,  is  no  unmixed  evil ;  it  is  the  motive  power  that 
throws  a  man  up  to  guide  and  control  the  community ;  it 
is  the  spur  that  often  wins  the  race  ;  it  is  the  trial  that 
culls  out,  like  fire,  all  the  deep,  great  qualities  of  a  man's 


504  A   METROPOLITAN  POLICE. 

nature.  That  poverty  is  no  evil,  —  at  least,  it  is  no  un 
mixed  evil ;  but  poverty  which  is  caused  by  drunkenness, 
—  for  I  am  only  taking,  in  these  twenty-five  thousand 
persons,  the  poverty  that  is  traceable  to  intemperance,-— 
the  poverty  that  is  caused  by  drunkenness  has  what 
history?  The  father  is  a  drunkard;  the  mother  often 
imitates  him ;  the  self-respect  of  the  family  is  lost ;  the 
home  is  gone  ;  it  is  a  scene  of  quarrel  and  degradation  ; 
the  children  are  thrown  neglected  on  the  streets,  with  no 
food,  no  education,  no  moral  sense  developed,  —  the  fright 
ful  and  fruitful  source  of  every  vice  known  to  the  civil 
code.  This  feeds  the  gallows,  fills  the  street  with  im 
purity,  makes  thieves  and  burglars.  Out  of  such  houses 
flows  a  constant  supply  for  all  forms  of  crime.  Without 
the  open  and  continued  sale  of  drink,  almost  every  hell 
of  the  gambler  would  be  closed ;  he  would  have  few  vic 
tims.  He  would  find  few  men  in  the  mood  to  be  victim 
ized.  Without  open  places  for  the  sale  of  liquor,  the 
houses  of  prostitution  could  not  be  maintained ;  that  is 
the  testimony  of  all  experience  in  every  city.  To  that 
shameless  pit  woman  seldom  sinks,  except  when  betrayed 
by  drink,  and,  even  \vhen  once  ruined,  could  not  bear 
such  a  life  unless  nature  was  daily  stupefied  by  intoxica 
tion.  Nine  tenths  of  those  sent  to  the  House  of  Industry 
are  common  drunkards.  Intemperance  is  one  of  the  most 
productive  of  all  causes  of  insanity.  "  Truancy  "  finds  its 
"  cause  of  canises  "  in  intemperance.  Said  the  Chief  of 
Polices-three  or  four  years  ago,  "  Intemperance  is  the 
direct  origin  of  more  poverty,  more  crime,  and  consequent 
suffering,  than  all  other  causes  combined."  Twenty-five 
thousand  men  reduced  to  poverty  in  a  year,  or  at  least 
every  year  relieved  by  the  public. 

Now  let  me  go  to  the  schools.  Twenty-five  thousand  is 
an  average  estimate  of  the  children  who  attend  our  public 
schools.  The  city  pours  out  a  quarter  of  a  million  a  year 


A   METKOPOLITAN   POLICE.  505 

to  mould  those  young  souls,  step  by  step,  to  virtue,  to 
make  them  good  citizens.  Twenty-five  thousand  with 
one  hand  it  lifts  up  ;  with  the  other,  it  tempts  twenty-five 
thousand  into  pollution  and  crime.  It  spends  four  hundred 
and  seventy-seven  thousand  dollars  a  year  to  do  it ;  foi 
that  is  the  cost  of  our  police  force,  of  our  Overseers  of  the 
Poor,  of  our  Lunatic  Asylums  (a  large  portion  of  whose 
inmates  are  rendered  insane  by  intemperance),  our  House 
of  Correction  and  House  of  Industry.  You  might  as  well 
take  a  third  of  a  million  of  dollars,  and  toss  it  off  the  end 
of  Long  Wharf,  —  we  should  be  richer  at  the  end  of  the 
year.  Leave  all  the  children  idle  in  the  streets,  shut  up 
the  grog-shops,  shut  up  the  schools,  throw  a  third  of  a 
million  into  the  water,  and  the  city  would  be  better  off  on 
the  thirty-first  day  of  December  than  she  is  now. 

The  Mayor  and  Aldermen,  to  whom  you  choose  to  give 
the  police,  take  with  one  hand  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars  of  your  money  and  mine  to  educate  twen 
ty-five  thousand  children,  and  with  the  other  they  tear  out 
a  law  from  the  statute-book  in  order  to  ruin  twenty-five 
thousand  adults.  The  inefficiency  of  the  Mayor  and  Alder 
men  makes  it  exactly  the  same  as  if  the  cost  of  our  school 
system  were  thrown  into  the  dock  from  the  end  of  Long 
Wharf.  We  know  just  as  well  what  educates  drunkards 
as  what  educates  a  school-boy.  The  Parker  House,  the 
Tremont  House,  the  Revere  House,  and  the  Howard 
Saloon  educate  intemperance  exactly  as  the  Latin  School 
educates  youth.  One  educates  for  heaven,  the  other  for 
hell ;  and  the  city  government  says  it  shall  be  so. 

I  am  perfectly  serious  on  this  ground.  I  know  the 
value  of  the  common  schools  of  Massachusetts.  It  makes 
my  house  worth  a  thousand  dollars  more  to-day  ;  it  makes 
my  right  of  free  speech  doubly  valuable  ;  it  makes  my  life 
safer  ;  it  makes  it  happier  and  more  honorable  to  live  in 
this  Commonwealth.  That  is  the  value  of  the  common- 


506  A  METROPOLITAN  POLICE. 

school  system,  which  at  great  expense  educates  the  chil 
dren  of  the  State.  By  its  side  stands  your  State  system 
for  breaking  up  the  intemperance  of  the  city.  I  do  not 
say  that  the  Mayor  or  the  Aldermen  could  prevent  it  all. 
I  know  well  the  difficulties.  I  only  ask  of  any  man  an 
honest  effort ;  I  only  ask  for  evidence  that  the  first  step  is 
taken  in  that  direction,  —  that  there  is  a  willingness,  a 
disposition,  to  do  it.  A  great  deal  could  be  prevented. 
The  mob  which  broke  up  our  Tremont  Temple  meeting, 
two  years  ago,  reeled  into  it  from  the  gorgeous  grog-shops 
which  surround  the  Temple.  Where  do  they  get  their 
unblushing  shamelessness  and  so-called  respectability  ? 
They  get  it  from  the  fact  that  your  Governors,  your 
Judges,  your  Senators,  your  lawmakers,  meet  week  after 
week,  and  month  after  month,  in  these  very  places,  to 
violate  the  law  which  they  have  placed  upon  the  statute- 
book.  No  wonder  they  are  ashamed  to  execute  the  laws 
which  they  break  before  the  very  sun  and  noonday  of 
Massachusetts. 

Such  are  the  reasons  for  the  Law.  One  half  the  crim 
inals  of  the  State  are  found  in  the  city  of  Boston.  We 
have  one  sixth  of  the  population,  and  yet  we  have  more 
than  one  half  the  criminals.  We  have  one  sixth  of  the  pop 
ulation,  but  we  pay  about  one  half  of  the  criminal  expenses 
of  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  — just  three  times  our  proper 
proportion.  What  does  it  come  from  ?  I  am  not  to  charge 
it  on  any  particular  corporation  ;  I  am  to  charge  it  to  a 
system.  It  is  the  massing  up  of  one  third  of  the  capital  of 
the  State,  and  one  sixth  the  population  on  this  peninsula. 
That  makes  a  new  order  of  things,  one  calling  for  a  new 
machinery  to  check  crime,  —  a  hot-bed,  where  all  the  ten 
dencies  to  crime  become  doubled  and  trebled,  where  the 
dangerous  classes  of  the  community  get  undue  power.  It 
is  because  of  this  peculiarity  that  we  need  a  different  sys 
tem  from  what  the  country  does.  Up  to  a  certain  point 


A  METROPOLITAN   POLICE.  507 

our  city  government  has  always  acknowledged  this.  For 
instance,  in  a  small  country  town  of  a  few  thousand  inhab 
itants  they  have  two  or  three  constables.  Nobody  knows 
who  they  are.  You  might  visit  half  a  dozen  houses,  and 
they  could  not  tell  you.  Only  once  or  twice  in  a  year,  on 
some  festive  or  other  occasion,  a  town  meeting,  a  picnic, 
or  something  of  the  kind,  is  he  ever  seen  or  needed.  He 
may  execute  a  writ  once  in  a  while.  If  there  is  any  disor 
der  in  the  town,  a  citizen  takes  notice  of  it,  reports  it  to  a 
justice  of  the  peace,  and  the  difficulty  is  cured.  That  is  a 
sufficient  machinery  for  a  small  town.  But  when  you 
have  a  large  and  dense  population,  great  wealth  invested 
in  certain  dangerous  and  tempting  forms,  you  cannot  trust 
the  execution  of  the  laws  to  the  volunteer  efforts  of  the 
citizens  ;  you  must  have  a  large  body  of  police  constantly 
in  the  streets,  ever  on  the  alert,  with  grave  and  extraor 
dinary  powers,  to  watch  criminals  and  follow  them  up. 
That  has  been  found  necessary.  Now  the  question  is 
whether  something  further  is  not  necessary  also.  The 
returns  for  ten  years  show  that  forty-two  per  cent  of 
the  average  population  of  this  county  was  arrested  for 
crime,  while,  in  other  counties,  the  number  arrested  was 
only  one,  two,  or  three  per  cent.  Why  this  difference  ? 
Because  a  city  necessarily  induces  greater  temptations, 
greater  dangers,  and  more  frequent  crimes.  It  needs, 
therefore,  a  more  stringent  machinery  to  execute  the  laws. 
Instead  of  that,  in  regard  to  this  temperance  law,  the 
city  government  defy  it.  They  themselves  pay  —  or 
did  pay  till  within  a  year  or  two,  I  will  not  speak  of  the 
present  year,  for  I  have  not  consulted  the  reports  —  about 
a  thousand  dollars  a  month  out  of  the  city  treasury  for  the 
indulgences  of  the  Board  of  Aldermen  and  Common-Coun- 
cilmen  at  an  illegal  liquor-shop,  which  no  one  of  them  had 
a  right  to  see  without  presenting  it  to  the  courts  within 
twenty-four  hours.  In  that  disgraceful  Anthony  Burns 


508  A  METROPOLITAN   POLICE. 

and  Sims  experience  of  the  city,  upon  which  I  am  shortly 
to  speak,  one  of  the  melancholy  features  of  city  sin  that 
day  was,  that  the  men  illegally  called  out  to  defy  .the  State 
laws  contracted  a  bill,  within  sight  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
within  sight  of  City  Hall,  of  between  one  and  two  thou 
sand  dollars,  for  liquor  and  food  furnished  them  at  an 
illegal  grog-shop,  by  order  of  the  city. 

Let  me  leave  this  question  a  moment,  and  turn  to  an 
other, —  free  speech.  Free  speech  is  so  vital  an  element 
of  civil  life,  so  important  a  privilege,  that  the  framers  of 
our  government  were  not  willing  to  leave  it  to  the  law,  — 
they  enshrined  it  in  the  Constitution.  It  was  so  funda 
mental,  that  it  could  not  be  left  to  annual  legislation ;  it 
was  grouted  and  dovetailed  into  the  very  first  stratum  of 
the  foundation  of  the  State.  Now,  the  class  of  men  who 
have  had  the  ordering  of  city  affairs  have  never,  for  the 
last  twenty  years,  attempted  to  protect  free  speech  on  this 
peninsula.  Let  me  tell  you  what  I  mean.  If  a  man  like 
the  editor  of  the  Boston  Post,  like  the  Hon.  Edward  Ev 
erett,  like  Mr.  Sumner,  any  popular  person  in  the  com 
munity,  wished  to  hold  a  meeting  on  this  peninsula,  he 
could  always  do  it ;  but  if  any  set  of  men  who  are  unpop 
ular  wanted  to  hold  a  meeting  here,  it  depended  entirely 
upon  the  mood  of  the  mob  that  month  whether  they  could 
hold  it  or  not.  These  very  walls  could  testify,  if  they  had 
voice,  how  many  dozen  times  they  have  seen  their  occu 
pants,  paying  an  honest  price  for  a  day's  use  of  them, 
disturbed  hour  after  hour,  and  finally,  perhaps,  in  some 
instances,  the  meeting  broken  up,  by  a  crowd  of  boys 
that  the  right  hand  of  one  policeman  could  have  quelled ; 
and  when  individuals,  the  very  lessees  of  this  hall,  would 
take  one  of  these  disturbers  to  the  courts,  he  was  set  free, 
and  the  persons  who  interfered  threatened  with  a  suit. 
You  know  that  the  trustees  of  the  hall  from  which  you 
nave  just  removed  for  a  season  sat  on  one  occasion  until 


A   METROPOLITAN   POLICE.  609 

midnight,  to  decide  whether  they  would  dare  to  risk  their 
property  when  the  Mayor  of  the  city  had  let  it  be  known 
that  he  did  not  intend  to  defend  it  against  the  mob  of  the 
streets.  You  know  too,  or  you  might  know,  that  the 
same  anxious  scene  of  consultation  went  on  among  the 
trustees  of  the  Tremont  Temple,  again  and  again,  whether 
they  would  dare  to  risk  their  building,  when  the  city  au 
thorities  had  unblushingly  and  publicly  declared  that  they 
would  not  protect  free  speech.  You  know  also,  that, 
when  the  Massachusetts  Antislavery  Society  was  mobbed 
out  of  its  hall  by  the  Mayor  of  the  city,  the  members  of 
the  Legislature  refrained  from  offering  the  Society  the  use 
of  the  State-House,  though  wishing  to  do  so,  because  the 
Executive  informed  them  that  he  had  no  means  to  pro 
tect  the  State's  property  against  the  grog-shops  of  the 
peninsula.  Macaulay  says,  speaking  of  James  the  Sec 
ond's  disturbed  reign :  "  On  such  occasions,  it  will  ever  be 
found  that  the  human  vermin,  which,  neglected  by  minis 
ters  of  state  and  ministers  of  religion, — barbarians  in  the 
midst  of  civilization,  heathen  in  the  midst  of  Christianity, 
—  who  burrow  among  all  physical  and  moral  pollution  in 
the  cellars  and  garrets  of  great  cities,  will  rise  at  once  into 
terrible  importance."  It  was  when  that  class  of  the  com 
munity  found  that  the  Mayor  was  willing  to  lead  them, 
and  that  they  could  riot  in  the  most  fashionable  drinking- 
saloons  free  of  expense,  that  your  Governor  dared  not 
trust  the  State-House  to  an  orderly  and  legal  assemblage 
of  the  citizens  of  Massachusetts.  It  was  at  a  time  when 
one  of  the  most  efficient  of  the  Chiefs  of  Police  said, 
"  Give  me  thirty  men,  and  an  order,  and  I  will  quell  that 
mob  at  once."  The  difficulty  was  not  that  it  could  not  be 
quelled.  That  class  which  Macaulay  describes  never  faces 
the  law  until  it  has  bribed  it.  The  moment  the  court 
turns  its  determined  countenance  upon  them,  they  retire 
to  cellars  and  garrets  again.  One  of  the  Aldermen  of  the 


510  A  METROPOLITAN  POLICE. 

city  said  recently,  in  the  State-House,  that  these  mots 
were  only  "watermelon  frolics, —  the  pounding  of  men 
with  the  soft  side  of  a  cushion  " ;  but  it  was  a  cushion 
that  the  Governor  dared  not  trust  to  touch  the  State- 
House;  it  was  a  mob  which  the  Mayor  said,  in  excuse 
for  inefficiency,  that  he  had  not  force  enough  to  control. 
Perhaps  it  would  not  be  disrespectful  to  ask  that  these 
several  city  dignitaries  would  arrange  beforehand,  and 
make  their  lame  excuses  at  least  consistent.  There  is  a 
class  of  whom  an  old  proverb  affirms  that  it  needs  to  have 
"  long  memories." 

Fellow-citizens,  for  the  last  five  years,  I  have  been  able 
to  make  in  New  York,  in  perfect  quiet,  with  the  unso 
licited  protection  of  the  police,  the  same  speech  which  I 
could  not  make  to  you  without  being  surrounded  by  fifty 
armed  friends.  Again  and  again  have  I  proved  this,  dur 
ing  the  last  five  years.  In  the  city  of  New  York,  the 
common  sewer  of  the  continent,  where  wealth  is  massed 
up  by  uncounted  millions,  where  the  criminals  of  all  na 
tions  take  refuge,  any  man  could  speak  his  mind  for  the 
last  five  years ;  and  if  the  journals  threatened  him  with 
violence,  he  need  not  go  begging  to  the  City  Hall,  as 
we  vainly  used  to  do  here ;  the  authorities  would  take 
notice  unsolicited,  and  see  to  it  that  he  was  protected. 
But  at  the  same  time,  in  our  own  city,  of  one  quarter 
part  of  the  inhabitants,  it  was  impossible,  without  the  aid 
of  armed  friends,  to  utter  the  same  words.  Why  is  this  ? 
It  is  no  fault  of  individuals,  as  I  said  before.  Three  thou 
sand  places  where  drink  is  sold !  Do  I  exaggerate  when 
I  say  that  each  one  of  those  places  represents  a  voter  ? 
Mr.  Ellis  has  said,  with  great  force,  that  every  one  of 
those  places  represents  at  least  ten  men  whom  it  influ 
ences,  which  would  make  thirty  thousand,  —  and  doubt 
less  his  estimate  understates  the  fact ;  but  I  am  not  going 
to  speak  of  those  whom  those  places  influence.  I  am 


A   METROPOITTAN  POLICE.  511 

going  to  speak  of  the  voters  which  they  send  to  the  polls, 
and  I  certainly  shall  not  exaggerate  if  I  say,  that  each  one 
of  them  influences  one  voter,  —  the  owner  of  the  shop, 
the  keeper,  the  tender,  or  the  frequenter  of  it.  Such 
liquor-sellers  are  generally  voters.  If  not,  every  one  has 
a  father,  brother,  servant,  barkeeper,  landlord,  men  of 
whom  he  buys  his  supplies,  frequenters  of  his  bar.  Cer 
tainly,  I  do  not  make  too  large  an  estimate  when  I  say 
that,  on  an  average,  each  one  of  these  places  controls  one 
vote.  There  are  three  thousand  voters,  —  indeed,  I 
should  not  exaggerate  if  I  said  five  thousand.  About 
fifteen  thousand  voters  on  this  peninsula  usually  go  to  the 
polls,  sometimes  twenty-two  thousand,  though  very  rarely. 
Now,  three  thousand  voters  could  always  hold  the  balance 
in  such  a  constituency,  —  Republican,  Democratic,  Catho 
lic,  Protestant,  —  crumbled  up  as  an  independent  commu 
nity  necessarily  is.  With  all  these  inevitable  varieties  of 
opinion  and  purpose,  three  thousand  men,  bound  together 
by  one  idea,  one  interest,  with  one  purpose  in  view,  and 
demanding  one  thing,  and  nothing  more,  who  know  what 
they  want,  stand  together  for  it,  and  throw  their  whole 
weight  to  secure  it,  can  always  hold  the  balance.  There 
never  was  a  city  election  which  that  number  of  votes 
massed  together  could  not  control.  I  say,  therefore,  with 
out  the  slightest  wish  to  be  personally  offensive,  that  the 
liquor-shops  of  Boston  choose  our  Mayors.  What  is  the 
result  ?  The  result  is,  that  it  is  as  much  a  bargain  as  if  it 
were  recorded  in  the  registry  of  deeds,  that  the  promi 
nent  aspirants  for  city  office  shall  not  execute  the  laws 
against  the  liquor-shops.  I  make  no  special  charge  against 
the  Mayor  and  Aldermen,  —  they  are  as  good  as  most  of 
us.  They  want  votes;  it  is  the  American  failing,  —  most 
men  want  votes.  One  man  wants  to  be  Mayor,  another 
man  wants  to  be  Alderman,  a  third  wants  to  be  Sheriff, 
and  a  fourth  wants  to  be  Common-Councilman.  Very 


512  A   METROPOLITAN   POLICE. 

well;  here  stand  the  party  that  want  something,  and 
there  stand  the  party  that  have  something  to  sell.  They 
have  their  votes  to  give.  It  is  understood  that  they  will 
give  them  to  the  man  who  will  do  the  least  to  execute  the 
Maine  Law.  The  bargain  is  not  acknowledged  before  a 
justice  of  the  peace,  nor  recorded  in  the  registry  of 
deeds ;  but  every  sensible  man  in  the  city  knows  of  its 
existence  ;  and  these  men  walk  into  office  because  those 
will  that  they  shall.  The  liquor-dealers  say,  "  This  is 
the  condition :  shut  your  eyes  upon  us !  "  The  conse 
quence  is,  that  both  parties,  all  parties,  are  obliged  to  bow 
their  necks  to  that  yoke,  and,  with  rare  exceptions,  there 
cannot  be  an  Alderman  nor  a  Mayor  of  the  city  elected, 
who  is  not  understood  to  be  willing  to  shut  his  eyes  to 
that  crime,  and  leave  the  law  of  the  State  unexecuted. 
It  has  been  so,  it  always  must  be  so  while  these  elements 
of  civic  strength  exist,  and  are  thus  tempted  to  exert 
themselves. 

The  reason  why  the  law  is  not  executed  in  favor  of  free 
speech  is  germane  and  sister  to  this  ;  it  is,  that  the  men 
who  are  interested  in  these  drinking-shops,  and  the  men 
whose  votes  they  can  command,  are  of  the  class  which 
hates  progress  and  freedom,  —  is  naturally  antagonistic  to 
them  ;  and  any  designing  leader  can  stir  up  such  a  mass, 
and  fling  it  at  virtue  and  order  and  liberty.  Hence  these 
consequences.  Their  agents,  of  their  own  natural  bias, 
run  greedily  to  do  such  agreeable  work. 

For  the  last  ten  or  thirteen  years,  this  has  been  the 
character  of  the  city  government.  They  have  said  to 
the  State,  "  We  will  not  execute  your  law."  Now,  law 
consists  of  four  things,  —  a  statute,  a  policeman  to  arrest 
the  offender,  a  jury  to  try  him,  and  a  judge  to  sentence 
him.  The  Constitution  says,  we  shall  have  judges  as 
"impartial  as  the  lot  of  humanity  admits."  We  have 
them.  Appointed,  how  ?  By  the  State.  The  other  end 


A    METROPOLITAN    POLICE.  513 

of  the  telegraph  is  a  man  to  bring  the  offender  before  the 
judge.  What  is  the  use  of  a  judge  ?  He  cannot  move 
of  himself;  he  is  powerless  if  you  do  not  bring  the  crimi 
nal:;  before  him.  But  the  city  government  of  Boston, 
chosen  by  this  machinery  I  have  spoken  of,  says  to  its 
police  officers,  "  Don't  you  furnish  that  judge  with  any 
criminals  ;  shut  your  eyes  upon  them  !  "  Then,  again,  if 
one  is  arrested,  by  any  accident,  what  more  ?  Why,  this  : 
the  statute  says  that  our  jurymen  shall  be  drawn  from  a 
box,  in  which  the  names  of  citizens  of  good  moral  charac 
ter  and  sound  judgment,  free  from  all  legal  exceptions,  are 
put.  The  city  weeds  out  the  jury-box  on  another  plan. 
In  all  trials  that  had  antislavery  or  temperance  in  them, 
you  might  be  certain  of  one  thing,  —  you  would  never  see 
an  Abolitionist  nor  a  temperance  man  on  the  jury.  If  he 
got  there,  it  was  an  accident,  and  there  were  always 
enough  to  neutralize  him.  It  is  just  like  the  black  ele 
ment.  We  have  several  thousand  black  men  in  our 
community ;  you  have  never  seen  a  black  man  on  a  jury 
but  once,  and  that  was  an  accident,  and  he  was  not  allowed 
to  sit,  though  he  had  been  regularly  drawn.  Many  of 
them  are  of  good  moral  character,  but  their  names  never 
/get  into  the  box  ;  or,  if  they  get  in,  never  come  out.  So 
of  a  man  known  distinctively  as  an  Abolitionist ;  if  his 
name  goes  in,  it  never  comes  out.  So  of  a  man  known  as 
a  temperance  man  ;  rarely  does  his  name  come  out.  But 
liquor-dealers  have  always  been  abundant  on  juries  ;  no 
jury  was  trusted  alone  without  them.  If  the  State  furnishes 
good  judges,  and  the  city,  at  the  other  end,  furnishes  no 
criminals,  or,  when  one  is  by  chance  caught,  fortifies  him 
with  a  jury  that  will  disagree  on  his  side,  how  is  the  law 
to  be  executed  ?  As  long  as  the  city  government  is  chosen 
by  men  whose  interest  is  on  that  side,  how  can  it  be  other 
wise  ?  How  is  the  law  to  be  executed,  when  you  have 
intrusted  its  execution  to  men  who  do  not  wish  or  mean 


514  A  METROPOLITAN   POLICE. 

to  execute  it,  —  who  were  elected  expressly  not  to  exe 
cute  it,  and  have  the  strongest  motive  not  to  do  so  ?  No 
matter  how  good  individual  policemen  are,  while  such  men 
rule  them.  You  know  when  Bailie  Nicol  Jarvie,  in  Scott's 
immortal  novel,  let  Rob  Roy  out  of  jail,  —  he  was  an 
alderman,  a  bailie,  and  let  him  out,  —  he  said  to  Rob, 
44  If  you  continue  to  be  such  a  thief,  you  ought  to  have  a 
doorkeeper  in  every  jail  in  Scotland."  "  O  no,  Bailie,'* 
replied  Rob,  "it  is  just  as  weel  to  have  a  bailie  in  ilka 
borough."  It  answers  the  same  purpose  to  have  a  servile 
and  complacent  Mayor  and  Aldermen  as  to  have  a  base 
policeman,  because  they  arrange  the  juries,  and  they  fetter 
and  command  the  police.  The  consequence  has  been,  that 
there  has  been  no  effort  to  execute  the  law.  The  defence 
put  in  is,  "We  cannot  execute  the  law."  The  Mayor 
said  of  the  riots  of  1860  —  61,  "  We  can't  put  them  down/' 
The  reply  of  his  own  policemen  was,  "  Thirty  of  us  will 
put  them  down,  if  you  will  allow  us."  The  reply  of  the 
Abolitionist  was,  "  When  did  you  ever  make  an  effort  to 
put  them  down  ?  The  only  time  you  ever  stood  on 
Tremont  Temple  platform  and  issued  an  order,  it  was 
obeyed  ;  the  mob  recognized  you  as  their  leader."  But 
men  say  at  the  State-House,  in  reply  to  the  eloquent  argu 
ment  of  Mr.  Ellis,  —  Mr.  Healy,  Alderman  Amory,  said, 
44  We  cannot  execute  an  unpopular  law."  Indeed  ! 
Indeed  !  I  can  remember  when  Marshal  Tukey  put  a 
chain  round  your  Court-House  to  execute  a  law  that  was 
hated  by  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  full  as  bit 
terly  as  Beacon  Street  hates  the  Maine  Liquor  Law  ;  and 
I  can  remember  when  he  went  up  to  a  legislative  com 
mittee  appointed  to  examine  into  his  conduct,  and  inquire 
why  a  policeman  of  the  city  of  Boston  was  acting  in  that 
illegal  manner,  against  the  statute  of  the  State,  and 
answered  Mr.  Keyes,  "  Sir,  I  know  it  is  illegal,  but  I 
mean  to  do  it.  Help  yourself  !  " 


A    METROPOLITAN   POLICE.  515 

In  1843,  Latimer  was  arrested  by  a  policeman  with  a 
lie  in  his  mouth.  In  1851,  Sims  was  surrendered  by 
policemen  acting  illegally,  and  avowing  their  defiance. 
In  1854,  Burns  was  sent  back",  and  his  claimants  were 
aided  by  the  police,  contrary  to  the  statute.  'Unpopular 
laws !  The  city  can  execute  anything  it  wishes  to,  un 
popular  or  popular.  The  city  executes  every  one  of  its 
own  by-laws  perfectly.  No  man  steals  with  impunity ;  no 
man  violates  Sunday  writh  impunity ;  no  man  sets  up  a 
nuisance  with  impunity.  As  the  Grand  Jury  said,  sev 
eral  years  ago,  of  these  grog-shops,  "  The  municipal  au 
thorities  can  remove  this  nuisance,  or  at  least  abate  it, 
whenever  they  will.  It  is  as  much  in  their  power  as  the 
offal  in  the  sewers  or  the  dirt  in  the  streets." 

Tell  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  Yankees  that 
they  cannot  execute  a  law  when  they  wish  to  !  Once,  by 
happy  accident,  our  Mayor  left  the  city,  and  an  exceptional 
but  most  unexceptionable  Alderman,  Mr.  Otis  Clapp,  took 
his  place,  —  no  trouble  that  day  in  quelling  the  mob. 
Deputy  Chief  Ham  did  it  in  thirty  minutes.  It  is  only 
the  presence  of  grog-shop  Mayors  that  makes  mobs  om 
nipotent.  But  suppose  Mayors  cannot  execute  the  laws, 
—  what  then  ?  If  Berkshire  should  say,  "  We  want, 
every  one  of  us,  to  have  two  wives,"  and  practise  that 
plan,  sending  word  up  to  Boston,  "  We  cannot  execute 
the  other  law,"  do  you  think  we  should  sit  down  quietly, 
and  let  it  go  ?  How  long  ? 

Boston  has  five  or  six  trains  of  railroads,  —  one  to  the 
Old  Colony,  one  to  Providence,  one  to  Worcester,  one  to 
Lowell,  one  to  Fitchburg,  one  to  the  eastern  counties.  All 
of  them  run  locomotives  where  they  wish  to.  Suppose 
that,  on  the  Fitchburg  Railroad,  one  locomotive,  for  a  year, 
never  got  farther  than  Groton, —  what  do  you  think  the 
Directors  of  that  road  would  do  ?  Would  they  take  up 
the  rails  beyond  Groton,  or  would  they  turn  out  the  en- 


516  A    METROPOLITAN    POLlCr- 

gineer  ?  There  is  a  law  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massa 
chusetts,  thoroughly  executed  in  every  county  but  ours  ; 
and  here  the  men  appointed  to  execute  it  not  only  do  not 
want  to,  but  you  cannot  expect  them  to.  They  were 
elected  not  to  execute  it,  and  they  say  they  can't  execute 
it.  Shall  we  take  up  the  rails,  or  change  the  engineer  ?  — 
which  ? 

Men  say,  to  take  the  appointment  of  the  police  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  peninsula  is  anti-democratic.  Why,  from 
1620  down  to  within  ten  years,  the  State  always  acted  on 
that  plan.  The  State  makes  the  law.  Who  executes  it? 
The  State.  For  two  hundred  years,  the  Governor  ap 
pointed  the  sheriff  of  every  county,  and  the  sheriff  ap 
pointed  his  deputies,  and  they  executed  the  laws.  The 
constables  of  the  towns  were  allowed  merely  a  subsidiary 
authority  to  execute  by-laws,  and  help  execute  the  State 
law.  The  democratic  principle  is,  that  the  law  shall  be 
executed  by  an  executive  authority  concurrent  with  that 
which  makes  it.  That  is  democracy.  The  State  law, 
naturally,  democratically,  is  to  be  executed  by  the  State. 
We  have  merely,  in  deference  to  convenience,  changed 
that  of  late  in  some  particulars,  and  we  may  reasonably 
go  back  to  the  old  plan  if  we  find  that,  in  any  particular 
locality,  the  new  plan  fails.  Why  not?  In  all  other 
matters  of  State  concern,  as  Mr.  Ellis  has  well  shown,  — 
Board  of  Education,  Board  of  Agriculture,  and  all  the 
various  boards,  —  the  State  has  the  control.  You  per 
ceive  this  "anti-democratic"  argument  can  be  carried  out 
to  an  absurdity.  Suppose  the  Five  Points  of  New  York 
should  send  word  to  the  Fifth  Avenue,  "  We  don't  like 
your  police  ;  we  mean  to  have  one  of  our  own,  and  it  will 
be  very  anti-democratic  for  you  to  take  the  choice  of  our 
own  constables  out  of  our  own  hands."  Suppose  North 
Street  should  send  word  to  the  City  Hall,  "We  have 
concluded  to  turn  every  other  house  into  a  grog-shop,  or 


A   METROPOLITAN   POLICE.  517 

something  almost  as  bad,  and  to  appoint  our  own  police  ; 
please  instruct  your  police  to  keep  out  of  our  ward."  We 
should  not  say  this  was  democratic.  We  should  say,  that 
as  far  as  the  interest  of  a  community  in  a  law  extends,  just 
so  far  that  community  has  a  right  to  a  hand  in  the  execu 
tion  of  it.  Now  the  State  of  Massachusetts  feels  an  in 
terest  in  the  execution  of  the  Maine  Liquor  Law.  We 
have  a  sixth  of  the  population  and  a  third  of  the  wealth  of 
the  State.  Do  the  influences  of  these  stop  with  the  people 
who  sleep  on  this  peninsula  ?  Does  not  our  influence 
radiate  in  every  direction  ?  Do  not  twenty  thousand  men 
do  business  here,  but  not  sleep  here  ?  A  third  of  the 
wealth !  Who  owns  it  ?  We  that  sleep  here  ?  Not  at 
all.  These  costly  railroad  depots,  these  rich  banks,  these 
large  aggregates  of  property,  who  owns  them  ?  Why,  the 
men  that  live  ten,  twenty,  thirty  miles  outside  of  the  city 
limits,  and  come  in  here  in  crowds  the  first  of  January, 
April,  July,  and  October,  to  get  their  dividends.  Men 
who  have  millions  invested  on  this  peninsula  no  interest  in 
knowing  whether  the  streets  are  safe !  Sending  their  sons 
into  our  streets,  —  no  interest  in  their  being  morally  whole 
some  !  Trusting  their  lives  here,  —  no  interest  in  their 
being  safe ! 

A  fortnight  ago,  a  woman,  a  teacher  in  a  country  town 
within  twenty  miles  of  Boston,  missed  her  father,  —  an 
honest,  temperate  farmer,  though  not  a  teetotaler.  He 
came  to  the  city  to  sell  cattle,  and  had  received  five  hun 
dred  dollars.  He  had  been  gone  a  week,  and  she  came 
down  to  the  city  to  hunt  him  up.  She  traced  him  from 
spot  to  spot,  and  finally  found  that  the  grog-shops  had 
got  hold  of  him,  made  him  drunk,  taken  his  money, 
kept  him  drunk  three  days,  so  that  a  convenient  police 
man  might  see  him  that  number  of  times  and  complain 
of  him  as  a  common  drunkard,  and  he  had  gone  to  the 
House  of  Correction  for  three  months.  Has  that  town 


518  A   METROPOLITAN   POLICE. 

no  interest  in  the  streets  of  Boston  ?  Let  me  tell  you 
again  a  story  that  I  have  told  you  once  or  twice  before, 
for  it  holds  a  grave  moral.  A  few  years  ago,  one  spring 
afternoon,  when  I  left  the  city  to  deliver  a  lecture,  I  alight 
ed  from  the  railroad  car  at  the  foot  of  a  hill,  whose  swell 
ing  side  bore  the  most  magnificent  of  country  dwellings. 
Architecture  and  horticulture  had  exhausted  their  art.  It 
was  so  unlike  anything  about  it,  I  was  led  to  ask  how  it  came 
there.  The  man  who  was  driving  me  said  it  was  built  by 
a  village  boy,  who  wanted  to  show  how  much  money  he 
had  made  in  Boston  in  fifteen  years.  "  He  left  here  with 
out  a  cent,"  said  the  young  man ;  "  went  to  Boston,  be 
came  a  distiller,  returned  with  two  hundred  thousand  dol 
lars, —  that  is  his  residence."  Do  you  suppose  there  was 
a  Yankee  boy  within  sight  of  that  hillside  who  was  not 
tempted  to  repeat  this  Boston  experience,  of  rapid  and 
easy  wealth  ?  I  rode  on  fourteen  miles,  and  was  set  down 
opposite  one  of  those  village  homes  which  Dr.  Holmes 
describes,  —  a  square  house  of  the  Revolutionary  period, 
—  old  elms  hung  over  the  lawn  before  it.  The  same 
driver  said,  "  In  that  front  room  lies  dying  the  grandson 
of  the  man  who  built  that  house.  Grandfather  and  father 
died  drunkards,  —  lay  about  the  streets  of  the  village 
drunk.  That  boy  and  I  started  together  in  life.  He 
went  with  me  to  Lowell.  We  went  through  the  mills 
and  a  mechanic  trade.  Never  did  one  drop  of  intoxicat 
ing  liquor  pass  his  lips.  Social  frolic,  increase  of  means, 
friendly  entreaty,  laughing  taunts,  gay  hours,  never  tempt 
ed  him.  Until  thirty,  he  stood  untouched,  guarded  by  an 
iron  resolution.  Having  gathered  a  few  thousands,  he  was 
tempted  to  Boston  for  a  wider  trade.  He  went  there,  — 
stayed  six  years ;  came  home  penniless  and  a  drunkard,  to 
lie  in  the  very  streets  where  his  father  and  grandfather 
had  lain  before.  He  could  stand  up  against  every  temp 
tation,  except  Boston  streets.  There  he  lies  dying,  as  his 


A   METROPOLITAN   POLICE.  519 

grandfather  and  father  before  him."  Do  you  say  that  the 
people  of  these  country  towns  have  no  interest  in  the 
streets  of  Boston  ?  You  tempt  the  virtue,  melt  the  resolu 
tion  and  corrupt  the  morals  of  the  Commonwealth,  as  far 
as  your  influence  extends. 

No  interest !  Let  me  go  a  little  way  off,  and  be  less 
invidious.  New  York  has  one  fifth  of  the  population  of 
the  State  on  Manhattan  Island.  Recently,  in  a  great 
natioral  convulsion,  the  city  stirred  herself  to  checkmate 
the  State.  For  Wadsworth,  the  candidate  of  order,  of 
liberty,  of  government,  the  country  counties  flung  twenty 
thousand  majority.  The  demons  of  discord  stirred  up  the 
purlieus  of  the  city,  and  flung  thirty  thousand  against  him. 
Ten  thousand,  the  ultimate  majority,  carried  their  candi 
date  to  Albany.  What  was  his  first  blow  ?  Seymour's 
first  act,  when  he  assumed  the  Governorship,  what  was 
it  ?  He  fulfilled  his  bargain.  He  hurled  his  defiance  at 
the  Metropolitan  Police,  which  kept  him  and  his  allies, 
conspirators,  from  carrying  the  Empire  State  into  the 
hands  of  the  Confederacy.  These  are  the  times  when,  as 
Macaulay  says,  "  The  vermin  burrowing  in  garrets  and 
cellars  show  themselves  of  terrible  importance."  Who 
knows  that  such  times  may  not  come  upon  us  ? 

I  have  seen  the  day,  in  that  city  of  New  York,  when 
Rynders  dictated  law  to  the  Chief  of  Police,  and  Matsell 
obeyed  him.  For  twenty  years  I  have  seen  in  your  city 
the  mob  rule  when  they  plea-sed.  I  have  seen  your  Mayor 
order  his  police,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  to  take  off  their  badges 
and  join  the  mob  which  clamored  down  free  speech  in  that 
consecrated  hall.  You  saw,  two  years  ago,  the  State  gov 
ernment  reeling  before  the  victims  of  the  Tremont  House 
and  Parker  House.  The  Governor  complained  then,  as  I 
am  told  lie  does  now,  that  in  the  whole  county  he  had  not 
one  single  officer  whom  he  could  command  to  execute  the 
law.  Who  shall  say  that  it  is  not  for  the  interest,  for  the 


620  A  METROPOLITAN   POLICE. 

peace,  for  the  prosperity,  of  the  State  to  make  this  great 
centre  of  wealth  and  population  independent  of  such  base 
control  ?  We  too  may  have  a  Fernando  Wood,  —  who 
knows  ?  Our  sixth  part  of  the  population  of  the  State 
may  attempt,  in  the  interest  of  liquor  and  despotism,  to 
defy  the  Commonwealth.  It  is  too  important  a  machinery 
to  be  left  in  the  hands  of  the  dangerous  classes.  We  want 
to  take  it  out  of  the  hands  of  the  dangerous  classes,  and 
put  it  into  the  hands  of  the  Commonwealth,  —  nothing 
else.  One  of  two  things  is  necessary.  The  law  is  bad,  — 
repeal  it ;  or  the  law  is  good,  —  keep  it.  No  other  county 
would  be  allowed  to  defy  the  law,  — why  this  ? 

The  Mayor  says  he  cannot  execute  it.  Take  him  at 
his  word.  Undoubtedly,  HE  cannot,  for  he  was  specially 
chosen  not  to  do  so  ;  but  the  question  is,  Can  it  be  exe 
cuted?  What  do  the  temperance  majority  of  the  Com 
monwealth  claim?  One  trial,  — nothing  more.  We  have 
funded  twenty-five  years  of  discussion,  any  amount  of  toil 
and  labor,  in  that  statute.  It  never  has  had  one  trial  yet 
on  this  peninsula.  May  we  not  ask  simply  one  trial  ? 
The  locomotive  has  never  attempted  to  go  beyond  Groton. 
Why  take  up  the  rails  yet  ?  If  Berkshire  should  say, 
"We  can't  execute  your  law  against  polygamy,"  what 
should  we  do  ?  Why,  appoint  fresh  sheriffs,  not  repeal 
the  law.  So  in  this  case,  let  not  Massachusetts  kneel  and 
say,  "I  too  am  a  slave  to  the  grog-shops  of  the  penin 
sula." 

We  do  not  claim  that  drunkenness  can  be  wholly  rooted 
out.  But  we  do  claim  that  this  law  can  be  executed  as 
perfectly  as  other  laws  are,  if  its  execution  be  intrusted  to 
competent  and  faithful  hands.  No  crime  is  wholly  pre 
vented.  Our  crowded  prisons  prove  that.  No  law  is 
perfectly  executed.  But  there  is  nothing  in  the  Maine 
Liquor  Law  that  distinguishes  it  from  other  statutes.  No 
man  claims  that  the  use  of  intoxicating  drink  can  be  wholly 


A   METROPOLITAN  POLICE.  521 

stopped.  But  it  is  idle  and  ridiculous  to  say  that  the  pub 
lic  sale  of  it  cannot  be  stopped,  as  much  as  the  indiscrimi 
nate  keeping  of  gunpowder,  or  the  opening  of  shops  on 
Sunday,  or  the  firing  of  muskets  in  crowded  streets, 
whenever  magistrates  shall  really  wish  and  mean  to  do 
their  duty. 

A  metropolitan  police  has  been  necessary  in  London, 
and  now  its  streets  are  the  safest  in  the  world.  In  New 
York  it  has  saved  the  city  from  convulsion  and  bloodshed. 
One  of  its  prominent  citizens  said  to  me  a  short  time  ago, 
"  You  do  not  know  how  near  we  have  been  to  an  outbreak 
in  this  very  street.  But  for  our  police,  the  attempt  would 
have  been  made  to  surrender  us  to  Southern  dictation." 
That  same  civil  disorder  may  impend  over  us.  What  is 
the  remedy  ?  Let  the  State  hold  her  hand  on  the  vices 
of  the  peninsula,  —  claim  her  old  democratic  right  to  exe 
cute  the  laws  she  has  made,  —  to  execute  them  if  the  city 
cannot,  or  if,  by  her  constitution  of  government,  she  will 
not  try  to  execute  them  faithfully. 

Our  plan  is  to  have  Commissioners  —  three  or  five  — 
appointed  by  the  Governor  or  by  the  Legislature,  which 
ever  seems  best.  Let  them  hold  their  offices  for  three  or 
five  years  ;  they  appoint,  rule,  and  remove  the  members 
of  the  police  force.  Such  a  Commission  would  be  re 
moved,  as  far  as  anything  in  our  civil  system  is  or  ought 
to  be,  from  the  control  of  party  politics,  and  would  be 
largely  independent  of  the  "  dangerous  classes."  This 
peninsula  needs  it  immediately,  —  the  neighboring  towns 
and  cities  will  need  it  soon.  The  members  of  such  a  po 
lice  force  should  hold  their  places  during  good  behavior, 
and  be  removed  only  on  charges  stated  in  writing,  to 
which  they  may  have  a  chance  of  replying.  Now,  every 
fall,  the  liquor-dealer  or  other  criminal,  whom  an  honest 
policeman  has  troubled,  holds  up  his  warning  finger  to  the 
Alderman  of  that  ward,  —  "  Remove  that  policeman,  or 


522  A  METROPOLITAN  POLICE. 

don't  expect  my  vote."  What  officer  can  be  expected 
to  do  his  duty  in  such  circumstances  ?  Fellow-citizens, 
during  the  two  or  three  months  preceding  our  city  elec 
tions,  we  have,  practically,  no  police,  —  none  that  dares 
execute  a  law  disagreeable  to  any  influential  class. 

The  moment  the  liquor  interest  of  the  city  see  that 
their  mixing  in  city  elections  will  not  secure  a  police  force 
in  their  interest,  they  will  probably  leave  the  election  of 
Mayor  and  Aldermen  to  the  natural  action  of  ordinary 
politics,  as  they  did  in  New  York,  and  then  we  shall  have 
as  good  officers  as  our  system  will  secure,  with  the  present 
level  of  education.  Such  Mayors  and  Aldermen  will, 
probably,  no  longer  prostitute  the  jury-box  to  defend  rum 
and  shield  mobs.  They  will  have  no  interest  to  do  so. 
They  cannot  so  wholly  corrupt  the  jury-box  as  to  protect 
the  liquor-seller.  The  liquor  once  poured  into  the  street, 
according  to  the  statute,  by  an  honest  policeman,  he  must 
be  sued  by  its  owner  before  a  jury  of  the  county.  No 
Mayor  could  make  up  a  jury  wholly  of  liquor-dealers. 
Two  or  three  honest  men  on  it  suffice  to  disagree,  and  no 
verdict,  in  that  case,  is  in  effect  a  verdict  for  the  officer. 
Disagreement  of  juries  now,  which  a  servile  Mayor 
arranges  for,  protects  the  indicted  grog-seller ;  then,  to  use 
a  common  proverb,  "  the  boot  would  be  on  the  other  leg,'* 
and  disagreement  of  juries  executes  the  law.  But  if  this 
change  be  not  an  entire  relief,  we  must  press  forward,  and 
find  a  remedy  for  that.  I  have  full  faith  in  democratic 
institutions.  Work  on,  and  we  shall  yet  lift  them  up  to 
much  higher  perfection.  The  future  is  sure.  Honest 
men  rule  in  the  end.  Only  show  them  their  interest  and 
duty,  and,  in  due  time,  they  will  rally  to  do  it.  Ten  years 
ago,  I  made  an  antislavery  speech,  painting  Southern  des 
potism,  and  demanding  that  the  North  should  rouse  her 
self  against  her  tyrants.  The  next  day,  meeting  the 
oldest  statesman  of  the  Commonwealth,  he  said  to  me, 


A  METROPOLITAN   POLICE.  523 

"  Your  speech  was  all  true.  I  knew  it  thirty  years  ago. 
But  what  can  you  do  about  it  ?  They  won't  listen."  I 
answered,  "  I  mean  to  protest,  —  claim  my  rights,  and  de 
nounce  those  who  assail  them,  whether  they  listen  or  not." 
The  policy  has  been  somewhat  successful.  Agitate  !  and 
we  shall  yet  see  the  laws  of  Massachusetts  rule  even 

V 

Boston. 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY.* 


LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN :  I  understand  this  is 
a  ward  meeting, — the  Sixteenth  Ward  of  New 
York,  the  banner  ward  for  radical  Republicanism.  [Ap 
plause.]  A  very  good-sized  meeting  for  a  ward  meet 
ing.  [Laughter.]  I  am  glad,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life, 
to  be  adopted  into  the  politics  of  New  York  city,  and  to 
address  a  ward  meeting  in  behalf  of  justice  and  liberty. 
The  text  of  my  address  is,  Patience  and  Faith.  Possess 
your  souls  in  patience,  not  as  having  already  attained,  not 
as  if  we  were  already  perfect,  but  because  the  whole  na 
tion,  as  one  man,  has  for  more  than  a  year  set  its  face 
Zionward.  Ever  since  September  22d  of  last  year,  the 
nation  has  turned  its  face  Zionward;  and  ever  since  Burn- 
side  drew  his  sword  in  Virginia,  we  have  moved  toward 
that  point.  [Cheers.]  Now,  a  nation  moving,  and  mov 
ing  in  the  right  path, — 'what  reason  is  there  for  doubt? 
what  occasion  for  despair  ?  We  have  found  out  at  last  the 
method,  and  we  are  in  earnest.  Patience,  all  the  passion 
of  great  souls,  makes  victory  certain ;  when  the  human 
heart  is  once  capable  of  this  greatest,  courage,  no  matter 
what  clouds  may  be  on  the  horizon,  now  and  then  God 
lifts  the  cloud  so  as  to  show  us  the  blue  sky  behind ;  no 

*  Substance  of  Speeches  in  New  York,  January  21  and  May  11,  1863,  — 
the  last  as  one  of  a  series  of  Lectures  before  the  Sixteenth  Ward  Republican 
Association. 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY.  525 

matter  how  dark  political  mistake  or  treachery  may  lower, 
the  moment  comes  when  the  North  says  that  it  is  all  a 
phantasmagoria,  and  behind,  the  great  heart  of  the  nation 
beats  true  to  its  destiny.  [Cheers.]  When  I  stood  on 
this  platform  five  months  ago,  men  said :  "  You  must  not 
be  surprised  if  blood  flows  in  the  streets.  Traitors  are 
trying  to  take  the  great  Capital  of  the  North  out  of  our 
arms,  and  the  Democratic  party  of  the  State  is  behind 
them."  But  one  fine  morning  there  was  prudent  hesita 
tion  in  the  leading  Democrat  of  Albany,  and  the  Mayor 
of  New  York  defeated  him  on  his  first  move.  [Cheers.] 
When  the  counties  came  to  be  represented,  the  leaders 
found  an  army  with  officers  and  no  rank  and  file.  And 
the  Goliath  of  Connecticut  Copperheads  has  been  killed, 
not  by  a  stripling,  but  by  a  girl.  [Applause.]  Or  if  we 
must  add  to  her  merits  that  of  General  Hamilton  of  Texas, 
the  eloquent  champion  of  the  Union,  then  we  can  almost 
say  that  out  of  the  mouths  of  girls  and  slaveholders  God  is 
perfecting  liberty.  [Applause.]  Now  I  neither  doubt  nor 
despair.  '  Gradually,  one  after  another,  the  shams  of  the 
North  fall  away.  It  is  to  be  a  long  fight,  no  local  strug 
gle,  —  only  one  part  of  the  great  fight  going  on  the  world 
over,  and  which  began  ages  ago,  —  only  one  grand  di 
vision,  one  army  corps  doing  its  duty  in  the  great  battle 
between  free  institutions  and  caste  institutions,  the  world 
over.  Freedom  and  Democracy  against  the  institutions 
that  rest  upon  classes.  We  may  be  the  centre  or  only  the 
outskirts  of  that  struggle,  but  wherever  caste  lives,  wher- 
jvcr  class  power  exists,  whether  it  be  on  the  banks  of  the 
Thames  or  the  Seine,  whether  by  the  side  of  the  Ganges 
;>r  the  Danube,  there  the  South  has  an  ally,  just  as  the 
surgeon's  knife  gives  pain  when  it  touches  the  living  fibre. 
[Cheers.]  And  against  this  mighty  marshalling  of  every 
thing  that  is  strong  in  human  selfishness  the  democracy 
of  the  North  does  battle.  Some  of  our  friends  are  anxious 


526  THE  STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY. 

that  able  and  earnest  men  shall  go  to  England,  make  the 
real  state  of  the  case  known  there,  and  so,  they  think, 
avert  national  collision.  Instinct,  Mr.  Chairman,  is  a 
great,  matter.  The  ruling  classes  of  England  understand 
our  quarrel  only  too  well.  They  feel  that  victory  for  the 
North  is  ultimate  ruin  for  them.  The  more  of  the  truth 
you  show  them,  the  more  their  hearts  lean  to  the  South 
ern  side,  —  their  side. 

Every  proud  man  who  hates  his  brother  is  our  enemy, 
every  idle  man  too  lazy  to  think  is  our  enemy,  every 
loafer  who  seeks  a  living  without  working  for  it  is  our 
enemy.  [Applause.]  Every  honest  man,  asking  only 
for  his  own,  and  willing  fairly  to  do  his  part,  is  our  ally, 
whether  he  eats  rice  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges  or  is 
enrolled  in  the  army  under  Hooker :  never  till  honest 
men  realize  this  can  there  be  peace  or  union.  Till  that 
time  union  means  a  submission  to  the  old  slavocracy,  as 
bitter  and  more  relentless  than  ever.  The  South  counted 
on  two  allies  in  the  ranks  of  her  Northern  enemy :  one 
was  hatred  of  the  negro,  —  the  other  Copperhead  Demo 
cratic  sympathy  with  the  aristocracy  of  the  South.  She 
counted  confidently  on  these  allies,  but  found  she  had 
reckoned  without  her  host.  We  have  been  accustomed 
to  say  on  this  platform,  for  the  last  ten  years,  that  if  cir 
cumstances  should  ever  rouse  to  an  antislavery  purpose 
the  rank  and  file  of  the  Democracy,  the  victory  for  free 
dom  would  be  as  sure  as  the  existence  of  God.  The 
Abolitionists  have  always  claimed  that  they  had  an  invin 
cible  ally  in  that  democratic  prejudice  against  wealth  and 
rank,  and  the  ineradicable  love  which  man  has  at  the  core 
for  the  rights  of  his  fellow-man.  [Applause.]  When 
the  war  broke  out,  the  first  blow  the  South  aimed  at  the 
Union,  as  if  according  to  chemical  law,  crystallized  that 
level  of  democracy  into  an  antislavery  mould,  and  from 
that  hour  to  this  it  is  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  Union,  and 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY.          527 

while  it  holds  the  future  is  certain.  The  only  reason  why 
this  element  did  not  grope  its  way  at  once  to  victory  was 
because  it  was  led  by  men  who  did  not  intend  to  conquer. 
Our  statesmen  were  only  ready  for  the  shibboleth,  "  Free 
dom,  if  necessary  to  save  the  Union  "  ;  it  was  a  contin 
gent  freedom,  —  not  freedom  for  itself  and  in  any  event. 
No  one  of  them  welcomed  the  war  as  a  God-given  oppor 
tunity  to  do  justice,  and  secure  for  the  nation  lasting, 
immutable  peace.  Under  that  sort  of  leadership  we  went 
to  battle.  The  generals  and  the  Cabinet  meant  no  more 

O 

than  to  play  a  part  in  the  great  drama  of  justice  for  which 
their  hearts  were  not  ready.  Lucian  tells  us  of  an  exhi 
bition  in  Rome  in  which  monkeys  had  been  trained  to 
take  part  in  a  play.  They  played  their  parts  perfectly, 
for  a  while,  before  an  audience  composed  of  the  beauty  and 
fashion  of  the  city,  but  in  the  midst  of  the  performance 
some  Roman  wag  flung  upon  the  stage  a  handful  of  nuts, 
and  immediately  the  actors  were  monkeys  again.  Our 
statesmen  went  to  Washington  monkeys  in  human  attire, 
determined  to  compromise  if  possible ;  the  South  flung 
nuts  among  them  for  eighteen  months,  and  they  were  on 
all  fours  for  the  temptation.  [Laughter  and  applause.] 
That  epoch  is  ended.  As  in  Cromwell's  day  they 
sloughed  off  such  effete  elements  as  Essex  and  Fairfax, 
we  should  slough  off  generals  and  statesmen ;  and  never 
can  we  be  successful  till  routine  West  Point  and  rotten 
Whiggery  have  been  made  to  put  on  decent  attire,  or 
sent  back  to  private  life,  and  those  put  in  their  places  who 
believe  in  absolute,  uncompromising  war. 

This  real  democratic  element  in  the  North  is  strong 
enough,  were  it  one  and  united,  to  have  crushed  all  its 
foes  on  this  continent  in  ninety  days.  There  never  was  a 
time  since  the  commencement  of  the  struggle  when,  if  the 
North  had  been  a  unit,  the  war  might  not  have  been  ended 
in  three  months  ;  and,  so  ended,  it  would  have  left  slavery 


528  THE   STATE   OF  THE   COUNTRY. 

where  it  found  it.  But  the  North  has  never  been  a  unit. 
With  the  North  as  a  unit,  democratic,  intelligent,  resolved, 
in  earnest,  the  South  never  would  have  risked  the  strug 
gle.  But  she  knew  that  the  North  was  divided  into  three 
great  parties.  One  was  routine,  West  Point,  too  lazy  to 
think.  [Great  applause.]  I  resolve  hunkerism  into  in 
dolence  and  cowardice,  too  lazy  to  think,  and  too  timid  to 
think.  The  man  of  the  past  is  the  man  who  got  his  ideas 
before  he  was  twenty,  and  had  rather  think  as  his  father 
thought  than  take  the  labor  of  thinking  himself:  he  is  a 
hunker,  and  he  will  probably  die  such.  [Laughter.] 
And  the  North  had  a  second  element,  negrophobia,  the 
Saxon  contempt  for  a  black  skin,  disgust  with  the  question 
of  the  negro,  hatred  of  him  as  another  race,  contempt  for 
him  as  a  slave,  and  weariness  of  the  question.  Outside  of 
that  was  the  democrat  of  the  North,  in  the  good  sense  of 
the  term,  —  the  man  who  believes  in  the  manhood  of  his 
brother  the  world  over,  and  is  willing  he  should  have  his 
rights.  Against  such  a  North  the  South  rebelled,  —  one 
of  our  hands  tied  up  by  negro  hatred,  and  the  other  by 
constitutional  scruples,  and  West  Point  on  our  shoulders. 
Against  such  a  North  the  South  rebelled.  You  remem 
ber  it  well,  —  the  North  that  never  dared  to  apply  the 
line  and  the  plummet  to  the  ethics  of  its  civilization, — 
that  never  dared  to  have  a  logic  which  would  know  no 
black,  no  white,  when  it  studied  its  duties, — the  North 
that,  both  in  pulpit  and  in  civil  life,  believed  and  obeyed 
the  old  proverb  :  "  When  the  monkey  reigns,  let  every 
man  dance  before  him."  [Laughter.]  As  long  as  a 
wicked,  contemptible  institution  had  honors  and  wealth 
and  fashion  to  bestow,  so  long  the  pregnant  knee  was 
crooked  before  it.  That  North  the  South  met  in  battle,  and 
she  mistook,  as  we  Abolitionists  did,  (that  is,  the  issue  will 
show  whether  we  did  mistake,  we  hope  it  is  so,)  how  far 
the  canker  had  gone,  how  great  hold  this  routine  of  hun- 


THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY.  529 

kcrism  had  on  the  body  of  the  people  :  that  North  rallied 
for  the  struggle,  poured  out  her  money  like  water,  and 
her  sons  with  ever-growing  willingness  for  the  great  battle 
betwixt  democracy  and  slavery,  betwixt  God  and  the 
Devil,  for  the  world  and  the  century.  The  government 
was  equally  in  the  dark,  equally  undecided,  equally  uncer 
tain  what  course  to  pursue,  and  for  a  long  time  we  stum 
bled  together.  We  have  learned  of  events,  and  claim  to 
know  our  times.  The  government  seems  neither  to  learn 
nor  to  forget  anything.  Why  ?  Well,  I  think,  because 
our  rulers  were  educated  as  Whigs.  The  old  Whig  party, 
good  as  it  was  in  many  respects,  virtuous  in  many  of  its 
impulses,  correct  in  certain  of  its  aspirations,  had  one  great 
defect :  it  had  no  confidence  in  the  people,  no  trust  in  the 
masses ;  it  did  not  believe  in  the  conscience  or  the  intelli 
gence  of  the  million  ;  it  looked,  indeed,  upon  the  whole 
world  as  in  a  probate  court,  in  which  the  educated  and 
the  wealthy  were  the  guardians.  And  so,  when  our  rulers 
entered  on  the  great  work  of  defending  the  nation  in  its 
utmost  peril,  they  dared  not  fling  themselves  on  the  bosom 
of  the  million,  and  trust  the  country  to  the  hearts  of  those 
that  loved  it.  Your  President  sat  in  Washington,  doubtful 
what  he  ought  to  do,  how  far  he  might  go.  Month  after 
month,  stumbling,  faithless,  uncertain,  he  ventured  now  a 
little  step,  and  now  another,  surprised  that  at  every  step 
the  nation  were  before  him,  ready  to  welcome  any  word 
he  chose  to  say,  and  to  support  any  policy  he  chose  to  sub 
mit  ;  so  that  matters  of  vexed  dispute,  matters  of  earnest 
doubt,  the  moment  the  bugle  gave  a  certain  sound,  have 
passed  into  dead  issues.  You  know  that  when  the  rebel 
lion  first  broke  forth  no  man  dared  speak  out  touching  the 
negro.  The  South  fought  to  sustain  slavery,  and  the 
North  fought  not  to  have  it  hurt.  But  Butler  pronounced 
that  magic  word  "contraband,"  and  summoned  the  negro 
into  the  arena.  [Applause.]  It  was  a  poor  word.  Some 

34 


530  THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 

doubt  —  I  do  not  —  whether  it  is  sound  law.  Lord  Chat 
ham  said,  "  Nullus  liber  homo  "  is  poor  Latin,  but  it  is 
worth  all  the  classics.  Contraband  is  a  bad  word,  and  may 
be  bad  law,  but  just  then  it  was  worth  all  the  Constitution 
[applause]  ;  for  in  a  moment  of  critical  emergency  it  sum 
moned  saving  elements  into  the  arena,  and  it  showed  the 
government  how  far  the  sound  fibre  of  the  nation  extended. 
When  Fremont  [loud  and  long-continued  applause]  — 
why  won't  you  ever  let  me  go  on  when  I  name  Fremont  ? 
[Laughter.]  I  say,  when  he  pronounced  that  word  Eman 
cipation  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  the  whole  North, 
except  the  government,  said  Amen.  [Applause.]  The 
government  doubted  till  the  22d  of  September,  1862. 
But  the  moment  the  government  pronounced  the  word,  it 
floated  into  a  dead  issue,  and  nobody  worth  minding  now 
doubts  or  debates  about  the  emancipation  of  slaves.  [Ap 
plause.]  It  only  shows  you  how  strong  the  government 
is,  if  it  will  only  act ;  how  certain  the  heart  of  the  people 
is  to  support  it,  if  the  government  will  only  trust.  If  Mr. 
Lincoln  could  only  be  made  to  accept  the  line  of  the  old 
huntsman  song,  — 

"  Sit  close  in  the  saddle  and  give  him  his  head," 

he  could  carry  twenty  millions  of  people  with  him  over 
every  barrier  to  victory  and  peace.  [Loud  applause.]  I 
believe,  therefore,  in  ultimate  success,  because  every  act 
of  the  government  is  more  than  indorsed  by  the  intelli 
gence  and  virtue  of  the  people,  —  the  virtue  of  the  people. 
That  is  the  only  point  at  issue.  To-day,  your  city  roars 
with  the  tumult  of  welcome  for  returning  soldiers.  Those 
soldiers  will  find  here  not  a  Virginia  eaten  over  with  bar 
renness,  not  starving  people,  not  empty  treasuries  ;  they 
will  find  a  North  untouched,  —  so  much  money  that  we 
have  not  to  go  abroad  to  borrow  any  [applause],  so  much 
wheat  that  we  could  feed  the  world,  such  ample  munitions 
of  war  that  your  traitor  merchants  smuggle  them  to  Caro- 


THE   STATE   OF  THE   COUNTRY.  531 

lina  [sensation],  —  a  traveller  might  journey  through  half 
the  North,  and  if  he  neither  spoke  nor  read  English,  he 
would  never  dream  there  was  a  war  in  any  part  of  the 
nation, — an  untouched  North,  while  the  South,  muster 
ing  all  her  white  men  and  all  her  sympathizers  the  world 
over,  has  not  yet  reached  the  garnered  treasure  of  North 
ern  strength.  We  have  not  yet  put  forth  the  first  begin 
ning  of  our  power.  In  Scripture  phrase,  "  Truly  there 
has  been  a  hiding  of  our  power."  If  we  fail,  it  will  be 
because  we  deserve  to,  because  we  have  not  virtue  enough 
to  prefer  the  end  to  the  means.  There  is  no  question  but 
of  the  conscience  and  intelligence  of  the  North.  Now,  I 
believe  in  that,  because  thus  far  the  government  has  never 
asked  for  anything,  nor  ventured  anything,  that  the  readi 
ness  of  the  people  has  not  both  given  and  indorsed.  There 
is  my  ground  of  hope. 

I  do  not  believe  in  Southern  exhaustion.  There  may 
be  starving  men  at  the  South,  starving  households,  ill-clad 
soldiers,  but  there  is  no  such  exhaustion  as  approaches  de 
spair.  The  South  has  not  yet  begun  to  play  her  last  card. 
The  moment  she  feels  exhaustion  she  will  proclaim  liberty 
to  the  neoro.  The  moment  her  cause  touches  its  downfall 

c5 

in  the  judgment  of  its  leaders,  she  will  call  the  black  into 
her  ranks,  —  call  him  by  some  proclamation  of  gradual 
emancipation,  which  will  gather  to  her  side  the  heartiest 
sympathy  of  the  English  aristocracy.  England  never  was 
an  antislavery  nation.  Her  ruling  classes  never  accepted 
emancipation  on  any  basis.  England  herself  never  ac 
cepted  immediate  abolition  on  any  basis.  As  O'Connell 
well  said,  the  scheme  of  immediate  emancipation  was  car 
ried  over  Parliament  by  the  conscience  of  the  middle 
classes,  and  they  do  not  usually  rule  in  England.  To-day, 
that  party  in  the  contest  which  offers  England  gradual 
emancipation  will  offer  her  all  that  her  judgment  approves. 
Before  the  South  permits  her  flag  to  stagger,  she  will 


532  THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY. 

write  on  it  gradual  emancipation,  and  bring  the  House  of 
Commons  to  her  side.  Many  slaveholders  will  submit 
to  be  colonists  of  England  where  one  would  submit  to  Lin 
coln.  General  Hamilton  goes  to  Boston,  a  slaveholder, 
and  says  on  our  platform,  "  I  am  glad  that  my  slaves  are 
gone  if  it  saves  the  Union."  If  loyal  men  will  surrender 
their  slaves  and  save  the  Union,  do  you  not  suppose  dis 
loyal  men  will  surrender  theirs  to  save  the  Confederacy  ? 
Do  you  suppose  the  South  will  stop  before  she  puts  on  to 
her  banner  Emancipation  ?  The  moment  she  utters  that 
word,  I  shall  admit  that  she  feels  weak  in  the  knees,  — 
never  till  then.  There  is  no  exhaustion  yet  that  touches 
a  traitor.  The  men  that  rebelled  are  the  slaveholders,  — 
rebelled  under  the  pretence  of  slavery,  with  the  real  pur 
pose  of  killing  republican  institutions  and  founding  aristo 
cratic  institutions  in  their  place.  Slavery  was  the  point  to 
be  protected,  and  the  pretence  that  rallied  the  rebellion. 
But,  now  that  it  is  afoot,  its  leaders  throw  off  the  mask, 
and,  without  concealment,  avow  at  home  that  their  object 
is  to  put  this  belt  of  the  continent  under  the  control  of 
aristocratic  institutions,  for  the  perpetuation  of  that  sys 
tem,  among  others,  which  they  love.  That  element  has 
yet  felt  no  exhaustion,  —  it  boasts,  justly,  of  rare  military 
skill,  and  of  as  large  armies  as  ordinary  men  can  handle,  — 
and  with  that  element  I  have  no  plea  of  conciliation.  I 
am  for  conciliation,  but  not  for  conciliating  the  slaveholder. 
Death  to  the  system,  and  death  or  exile  to  the  master,  is 
the  only  motto.  [Applause.]  There  is  a  party  for  whom 
I  have  ever  the  right  hand  of  conciliation,  and  whenever 
the  foot  of  military  despotism  is  lifted  from  that  party,  I 
believe  that  in  the  South  itself  we  shall  be  surprised  at  the 
weight,  strength,  and  number  of  the  men  who  still  love 
the  Union.  There  is  a  party  for  whom  I  have  conciliation, 
and  this  [taking  by  the  hand  a  beautiful  little  girl  of  five 
years  old,  with  a  fair  complexion  and  light  auburn  ring- 


THE  STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY.  533 

lets]  is  its  representative.  In  the  veins  that  beat  now  in 
my  right-hand  runs  the  best  blood  in  Virginia's  white 
races  and  the  better  blood  of  the  black  race  of  the  Old 
Dominion  [applause],  —  a  united  race,  to  whom,  in  its 
virtue,  belongs  in  the  future  a  country,  which  the  toil  and 
labor  of  its  ancestors  redeemed  from  nature  and  gave  to 
civilization  and  the  nineteenth  century.  [Applause.]  For 
that  class  I  have  ever  an  open  door  of  conciliation,  —  the  la 
bor,  the  toil,  the  muscle,  the  virtue,  the  strength,  the  democ 
racy,  of  the  Southern  States.  This  blood  represents  them 
all, — the  poor  white,  a  non-slaveholder,  deluded  into  re 
bellion  for  a  system  which  crushes  him,  —  some  equally 
deluded  and  some  timid  and  gagged  masters,  —  the  slave 
restored  to  his  rights,  when  now,  at  last,  for  the  first  time 
in  her  history,  Virginia  has  a  government,  and  is  not  a 
horde  of  pirates  masquerading  as  a  State.  No,  the  South 
has  not  yet  felt  the  first  symptom  of  exhaustion.  Get  no 
delusive  hope  that  our  success  is  to  come  from  any  such 
source. 

This  war  will  never  be  ended  by  an  event.  It  will 
never  come  to  a  conclusion  by  a  great  battle.  It  is  too 
deep  in  its  sources  ;  it  is  too  wide  in  its  influence  for 
that.  The  great  struggle  jn  England  between  democracy 
and  nobility  lasted  from  1640  to  1660,  taking  a  king's  life 
in  its  progress,  and  yet  failed  for  the  time.  The  great 
struggle  between  the  same  parties  in  France  began  in 
1789,  and  it  is  not  yet  ended.  Our  own  Revolution  began 
in  1775,  and  never,  till  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revo 
lution  concentrated  the  attention  of  the  monarchies  of 
Europe,  was  this  country  left  in  peace.  And  it  will  take 
ten  or  twenty  years  to  clear  off  the  scar  of  such  a  strug 
gle.  Prepare  yourself  for  a  life-long  enlistment.  God 
has  launched  this  Union  on  a  voyage  whose  only  port  is 
Liberty ,  and  whether  the  President  relucts,  or  whether 


534  THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY. 

the  cabin-boys  conspire,  it  matters  not,  —  absolute  justice 
holds  the  helm,  and  we  never  shall  come  into  harbor  until 
every  man  under  the  flag  is  free.  [Applause.]  Why  do 
I  say  this  ?  I  will  tell  you.  We  are  accustomed  to  use 
the  words  North  and  South  familiarly.  They  once  meant 
the  land  toward  the  pole  and  the  land  toward  the  sun. 
They  have  a  deeper  significance  at  present.  By  the  North 
I  mean  the  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century,  —  I  mean 
that  equal  and  recognized  manhood  up  to  which  the  race 
has  struggled  by  the  toils  and  battles  of  nineteen  centuries, 
—  I  mean  free  speech,  free  types,  open  Bibles,  the  wel 
come  rule  of  the  majority,  —  I  mean  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  !  [Applause.]  And  by  the  South,  I  mean 
likewise  a  principle,  and  not  a  locality,  an  element  of  civil 
life  in  fourteen  rebellious  States.  I  mean  an  element 
which,  like  the  days  of  Queen  Mary  and  the  Inquisition, 
cannot  tolerate  free  speech,  and  punishes  it  with  tlue  stake. 
I  mean  the  aristocracy  of  the  skin,  which  considers  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  a  sham,  and  democracy  a 
snare,  —  which  believes  that  one  third  of  the  race  is 
born  booted  and  spurred,  and  the  other  two  thirds  ready 
saddled  for  that  third  to  ride.  I  mean  a  civilization  which 
prohibits  the  Bible  by  statute  to  every  sixth  man  of  its 
community,  and  puts  a  matron  in  a  felon's  cell  for  teach 
ing  a  black  sister  to  read.  I  mean  the  intellectual,  social, 
aristocratic  South,  —  the  thing  that  manifests  itself  by 
barbarism  and  the  bowie-knife,  by  bullying  and  lynch- 
law,  by  ignorance  and  idleness,  by  the  claim  of  one  man 
to  own  his  brother,  by  statutes  making  it  penal  for  the 
State  of  Massachusetts  to  bring  an  action  in  her  courts, 
by  statutes,  standing  on  the  books  of  Georgia  to-day, 
offering  five  thousand  dollars  for  the  head  of  William 
Lloyd  Garrison.  That  South  is  to  be  annihilated.  [Loud 
applause.]  The  totality  of  my  common  sense  — 01  what 
ever  you  may  call  it  —  is  this,  all  summed  up  in  one 


THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY.  535 

word  :  This  country  will  never  know  peace  nor  union 
until  the  South  (using  the  words  in  the  sense  I  have  de 
scribed)  is  annihilated,  and  the  North  is  spread  over  it.  I 
do  not  care  where  men  go  for  the  power.  They  may  find 
it  in  the  parchment,  —  I  do.  I  think,  with  Patrick  Henry, 
with  John  Quiricy  Adams,  with  General  Cass,  we  have 
ample  constitutional  powers  ;  but  if  we  had  not,  it  would 
not  trouble  me  in  the  least.  [Laughter  and  applause.] 
I  do  not  think  a  nation's  life  is  bound  up  in  a  parchment. 
I  think  this  is  the  momentous  struggle  of  a  great  nation 
for  existence  and  perpetuity.  Two  elements  are  at  war 
to-day.  In  nineteen  loyal  and  fourteen  rebellious  States 
those  two  elements  of  civilization  which  I  have  described 
are  fighting.  And  it  is  no  new  thing  that  they  are  fight 
ing.  They  could  not  exist  side  by  side  without  fighting, 
and  they  never  have.  In  1787,  when  the  Constitution 
was  formed,  James  Madison  and  Rufus  King,  followed  by 
the  ablest  men  in  the  Convention,  announced  that  the  dis 
sension  between  the  States  was  not  between  great  States 
and  little,  but  between  Free  States  and  Slave.  Even 
then  the  conflict  had  begun.  In  1833,  Mr.  Adams  said, 
on  the  floor  of  Congress  :  "  Whether  Slave  and  Free 
States  can  cohere  into  one  Union  is  a  matter  of  theoretical 
speculation.  We  are  trying  the  experiment."  In  June, 
1858,  Mr.  Lincoln  used  the  language  :  u  This  country  is 
half  slave  and  half  free.  It  must  become  either  wholly 
slave  or  wholly  free."  In  October  of  the  same  year,  Mr. 
Seward,  in  his  great  "  irrepressible  conflict  "  speech  at 
Rochester,  said  :  "  The  most  pregnant  remark  of  Napo 
leon  is,  that  Europe  is  half  Cossack  and  half  republican. 
The  systems  are  not  only  inconsistent,  they  are  incom 
patible  ;  they  never  did  exist  under  one  government. 
They  never  can."  "  Our  fathers,"  he  goes  on  to  say, 
"  recognized  this  truth.  They  saw  the  conflict  developing 
when  they  made  the  Constitution.  And  while  tender- 


536  THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY. 

conscience*!  and  tender-hearted  men  lament  this  strife 
between  slavery  and  antislaveiy,  our  fathers  not  only 
foresaw,  but  they  initiated  it."  They  knew  that  these 
two  systems  would  fight.  But  they  thought  under  the 
parchment  of  the  Constitution  they  could  fight  it  out  by 
types  ;  they  could  discuss  it  to  a  peaceful  solution  ;  ballots 
and  parties,  types  and  free  speech,  would  make  brother 
States  and  sister  States,  —  settle  the  conflict  between  two 
irreconcilable  civilizations.  What  is  the  history  of  our 
seventy  years  ?  It  is  the  history  of  two  civilizations  con 
stantly  struggling,  and  always  at  odds  except  when  one  or 
the  other  rules.  So  long  as  the  South  ruled,  up  to  1819, 
we  had  uniform  peace.  The  Missouri  Compromise  was 
the  first  solemn  protest  of  rising  Northern  civilization 
against  the  Southern.  It  was  an  unsuccessful  protest. 
The  South  put  it  under  her  feet,  but  she  did  not  kill  it. 
It  continued  alive  through  the  stormy  days  of  Texas,  and 
showed  its  head  above  water  in  the  Compromise  in  1850. 
And  again  it  was  strangled  and  put  under  the  heel  of 
fourteen  States.  But  it  culminated  again  by  the  irrepres 
sible  power  of  God's  own  laws,  and  in  1861  wrote  the 
name  of  Abraham  Lincoln  on  the  topmost  wall  of  the  Re 
public.  This  was  not  victory.  Not  victory,  but  the  her- 
rald  of  victory.  It  was  seventeen  hundred  thousand 
ballots  recording  the  strength  of  the  rising  North  against 
the  South.  And  the  statesmanship  of  the  South  read 
correctly  this  record.  She  said,  "  I  can  for  four  or  eight  or 
twelve  years  buy  this  man,  and  bribe  that,  and  bully  the 
other.  But  that  is  a  poor  and  beggarly  existence.  There 
is  another  way  open  to  me.  I  agreed  at  the  outset  to 
abide  the  issue  of  free  discussion,  and  I  put  my  system  on 
trial  against  Massachusetts  free  speech." 

Seventy  years  ago  the  North  flung  down  the  gauntlet 
of  the  printing-press,  and  said,  "  I  will  prove  that  my  sys 
tem  —  freedom  —  is  the  best."  The  South  accepted  the 


THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY.  537 

Constitution  of  the  United  States,  securing  a  free  press, 
and  took  the  risk.  She  said :  "  There  is  my  slavery.  I 
believe  it  will  abide  discussion.  I  am  willing  to  put  it  into 
the  caldron."  And  Massachusetts  put  in  her  land  and 
character  and  brains,  and  we  made  a  "  hodge-podge,"  as 
the  English  law  says,  a  general  mess,  a  bowl  of  punch 
[laughter],  of  all  the  institutions  of  the  nation,  and  we 
said,  "  There  is  the  free  press,  untrammelled,  for  one  ele 
ment,  and  whatever  cannot  bear  that  must  be  thrown 
away."  [Applause.]  For  two  generations,  the  experi 
ment  went  on ;  and  when  Lincoln  went  to  Washington, 
South  Carolina  saw  the  handwriting  on  the  wall,  —  the 
handwriting  as  of  old,  —  that  the  free  press  had  conquered, 
and  that  slavery  was  sinking,  like  a  dead  body,  to  the  bot 
tom  ;  and  she  said,  practically :  "  I  know  I  made  the 
bargain,  but  I  cannot  abide  it.  I  know  I  agreed  to  put 
myself  into  the  general  partnership,  and  now  comes  the 
demand  for  my  submission  to  the  great  laws  of  human 
progress,  —  I  cannot  submit."  So  she  loaded  her  guns, 
and  turned  them,  shotted  to  the  lips,  against  the  Federal 
Government,  saying,  "  There  is  a  fortification  behind  the 
printing-press,  —  it  is  the  Minie  rifle."  "  All  well,"  said 
the  North  ;  "  now  we  will  try  that.  [Applause.]  I  offered 
you  the  nineteenth  century,  —  books  ;  you  chose  to  go 
back  to  the  fifteenth,  —  armies  ;  try  it !  "  The  South 
flung  down  the  gauntlet;  the  North  raised  it,  and  has 
flung  it  back  into  the  Gulf.  [Applause.]  Beaten  in  both 
ways,  conquered  on  both  issues,  our  civilization  triumphant 
in  brains,  and  still  more  emphatically  triumphant  in  bullets 
[applause],  the  question  now  comes  up,  Which  shall  rule 
this  one  and  indivisible  country  ?  The  South  said,  "  I 
load  my  cannon  in  order  that  I  may  annihilate  Massachu 
setts."  "  I  accept  it,"  said  the  Bay  State,  and,  her  can 
non  being  the  largest  and  the  strongest,  she  annihilates  the 
South  instead.  [Renewed  applause.]  That  is  the  argu 


538          THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 

ment.  We  should  have  gone  to  the  wall  had  she  beaten. 
One  nation  !  —  she  goes  to  the  wall  when  we  beat.  That 
is  common  sense  ;  that  is  fair,  sound  policy. 

We  have  been  planted  as  one  nation  ;  the  normal  idea 
of  our  existence  is  that  it  is  to  be  one  and  indivisible.  We 
are  one  nation.  That  being  taken  for  granted  at  the  out 
set,  in  this  battle  of  civilizations,  which  is  to  govern  ? 
The  best.  I  do  not  think  we  have  any  claim  to  govern 
this  country  on  the  ground  that  we  have  more  cannon, 
more  men,  and  more  money  than  the  South.  That  is  a 
bald,  brutal  superiority.  The  claim  of  the  North  to  govern 
must  be  founded  on  the  ground  that  our  civilization  is  bet 
ter,  purer,  nobler,  higher,  than  that  of  the  South. 

The  two  ideas  have  always  contended  for  mastery,  till 
now  by  argument,  by  types  ;  —  now,  with  bullets.  Our 
war  is  only  an  appeal  from  the  nineteenth  century  of  free 
dom  and  ballots  to  the  system  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
The  old  conflict,  —  a  new  weapon,  that  is  all.  The  South 
thought  because  once,  twice,  thrice,  the  spaniel  North  had 
gotten  down  on  her  knees,  that  this  time,  also,  poisoned 
by  cotton-dust,  she  would  kiss  her  feet.  [A  voice,  "  No 
go  this  time  !  "  and  applause.]  But  instead  of  that,  for  the 
first  time  in  our  history,  the  North  has  flung  the  insult 
back,  and  said :  "  By  the  Almighty,  the  Mississippi  is 
mine,  and  I  will  have  it."  [Applause.]  Now,  when 
shall  come  peace  ?  Out  of  this  warlike  conflict,  when 
shall  come  peace  ?  Just  as  it  came  in  the  conflict  of  par 
ties  and  discussion.  Whenever  one  civilization  gets  the 
uppermost  positively,  then  there  will  be  peace,  and  never 
till  then.  There  is  no  new  thing  under  the  sun.  The 
light  shed  upon  our  future  is  the  light  of  experience. 
Seventy  years  have  not  left  us  ignorant  of  what  the  aris 
tocracy  of  the  South  means  and  plans,  if  it  has  left  the 
Secretary  of  State  ignorant.  [Laughter  and  applause.] 
The  South  needs  to  rule,  or  she  goes  by  the  board.  She 


THE  STATE   OF  THE  COUNTRY.  539 

is  a  wise  power.  I  respect  her  for  it.  She  knows  that 
she  needs  to  rule.  What  does  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  plan  ? 
Do  you  suppose  he  plans  for  an  imaginary  line  to  divide 
South  Carolina  from  New  York  and  Massachusetts  ? 
What  good  would  that  do  ?  An  imaginary  line  will  not 
shut  out  ideas.  But  she  must  bar  out  those  ideas.  That 
is  the  programme  in  the  South.  He  imagines  he  can 
broaden  his  base  by  allying  himself  with  a  weaker  race. 
He  says  :  "I  will  join  marriage  with  the  weak  races  of 
Mexico  and  the  Southwest,  and  then,  perhaps,  I  can  draw 
to  my  side  the  Northwest,  with  its  interests  as  an  agri 
cultural  population,  naturally  allied  to  me,  and  not  to  the 
Northeast,  with  its  tariff  set  of  States."  And  he  thinks 
thus,  a  strong,  quiet  slaveholding  empire,  he  will  bar  New 
England  and  New  York  out  in  the  cold,  and  will  have 
comparative  peace.  But  if  he  bar  New  England  out  in 
the  cold,  what  then  ?  She  is  still  there.  [Laughter.] 
And  give  it  only  the  fulcrum  of  Plymouth  Rock,  an  idea 
will  upheave  the  continent.  Now,  Davis  knows  that  better 
than  we  do,  —  a  great  deal  better.  His  plan,  therefore, 
is  to  mould  an  empire  so  strong,  so  broad,  that  it  can  con 
trol  New  England  and  New  York.  He  is  not  only  to 
found  a  slaveholding  despotism,  but  he  is  to  make  it  so 
strong  that,  by  traitors  among  us,  and  hemming  us  in  by 
power,  he  is  to  cripple,  confine,  break  down,  the  free  dis 
cussion  of  these  Northern  States.  Unless  he  does  that  he 
is  not  safe.  He  knows  it.  Now  I  do  not  say  he  will  suc 
ceed,  but  I  tell  you  what  I  think  is  the  plan  of  a  states 
manlike  leader  of  this  effort.  To  make  slavery  safe,  he 
must  mould  Massachusetts,  not  into  being  a  slaveholding 
Commonwealth,  but  into  being  a  silent,  unprotesting  Com 
monwealth  ;  that  Maryland  and  Virginia,  the  Carolinas, 
and  Arkansas,  may  be  quiet,  peaceable  populations.  He 
is  a  wise  man.  He  knows  what  he  wants,  and  he  wants  it 
with  a  will,  like  Julius  Caesar  of  old.  He  has  gathered 


540          THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 

every  dollar  and  every  missile  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line  to  hurl  a  thunderbolt  that  shall  serve  his  purpose. 
And  if  he  does  achieve  a  separate  confederacy,  and  shall 
be  able  to  bribe  the  West  into  neutrality,  much  less  alli 
ance,  a  dangerous  time,  and  a  terrible  battle  will  these 
Eastern  States  have.  For  they  will  never  make  peace. 
The  Yankee  who  comes  out  of  Cromwell's  bosom  will 
fight  his  Naseby  a  hundred  years,  if  it  last  so  long,  but  he 
will  conquer.  [Applause.]  In  other  words,  Davis  will 
try  to  rule.  If  he  conquers,  he  is  to  bring,  in  his  phrase, 
Carolina  to  Massachusetts.  And  if  we  conquer,  what  is 
our  policy  ?  To  carry  Massachusetts  to  Carolina.  In 
other  words,  carry  Northern  civilization  all  over  the  South. 
It  is  a  contest  between  civilizations.  Whichever  conquers 
supersedes  the  other. 

I  may  seem  tedious  in  this  analysis.  But  it  seems  to 
me  that  the  simple  statement  includes  the  whole  duty  and 
policy  of  the  hour.  It  is  a  conflict  which  will  never  have 
an  end  until  one  or  the  other  element  subdues  its  rival. 
Therefore  we  should  be,  like  the  South,  penetrated  with 
an  idea,  and  ready  with  fortitude  and  courage  to  sacrifice 
everything  to  that  idea.  No  man  can  fight  Stonewall 
Jackson,  a  sincere  fanatic  on  the  side  of  slavery,  but  John 
Brown,  an  equally  honest  fanatic  on  the  other.  [Ap 
plause.]  They  are  the  only  chemical  equals,  and  will 
neutralize  each  other.  You  cannot  neutralize  nitric  acid 
with  cologne-water.  You  cannot  hurl  William  H.  Se\v- 
ard  at  Jeff  Davis.  [Great  applause  and  laughter.]  You 
must  have  a  man  of  ideas  on  both  sides.  Otherwise  the 
elements  of  the  struggle  are  unequal. 

Our  object  is  to  subdue  the  South.  What  right  has 
our  civilization  to  oust  out  the  other  ?  It  has  this  right : 
We  are  a  Union,  —  not  a  partnership,  —  a  marriage. 
We  put  our  interests  all  together  in  1787.  We  joined 
our  honor  and  our  wealth.  This  question  is  not  to  be 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY.  541 

looked  at  like  a  technical  lawyer  dotting  his  i's  and  cross 
ing  his  t's,  and  making  his  semicolons  into  colons.  It  is  to 
be  looked  at  in  the  broad  light  of  national  statesmanship. 
Our  fathers,  if  they  were  honorable  men,  as  we  believe, 
accepted  slavery  as  a  part  of  their  civil  constitution  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  put  into  a  common  lot  with  freedom, 
with  progress,  with  wealth,  with  education.  If  it  stood  its 
own,  well ;  if  it  went  by  the  board,  so.  It  was  an  intelli 
gible,  if  not  an  honest,  bargain.  They  consented  to  be 
disgraced  by  the  toleration  of  slavery ;  they  consented  to 
let  the  fresh  blood  of  the  young,  vigorous  free  labor  of 
many  States  build  it  up  into  longer  and  firmer  life,  only 
on  condition  that  it  should  take  its  chances  with  all  the 
other  great  national  interests.  It  was  with  this  funda 
mental  understanding  that  the  nation  commenced,  and  the 
great  special  interests  of  the  country  are  based  upon  it. 
For  instance,  the  Illinois  farmer,  when  he  bought  of  the 
Union  a  thousand  acres  in  the  Northwest,  he  did  not 
buy  a  thousand  acres  isolated  in  the  Northwest  ;  he 
bought  a  thousand  acres  with  New  Orleans  for  his  port  of 
entry  and  New  York  for  his  counting-house.  And  it  was 
as  much  a  part  of  the  deed  as  if  it  had  been  so  written. 
Now,  if  South  Carolina  can  show  that  Illinois  and  New 
York  have  broken  the  deed,  she  has  a  right  of  revolution ; 
that  is,  she  has  a  right  to  reject  it.  But  until  she  can 
show  that  they  have  broken  the  deed,  she  is  a  swindler. 
Illinois  owns  New  Orleans  as  much  as  Chicago,  in  a  na 
tional  sense.  So  the  negro  who  sat  down  and  waited 
when  Samuel  Adams,  who  thought  slavery  a  crime,  and 
your  Gouverneur  Morris,  who  thought  it  a  disgrace  and 
a  sin,  said,  "  Wait,  the  time  will  come  when  the  constant 
waves  of  civilization  or  the  armed  right  hand  of  the  war 
power  will  strike  off  your  fetters,"  and  the  slave  sat  down 
and  waited.  In  1819,  —  the  Missouri  Compromise,  — 
when  the  time  had  come,  as  John  Randolph  said  the  time 


542  THE   STATE   OF  THE   COUNTRY. 

would  come,  when  the  master  would  run  away  from  his 
slave,  the  slave  arose  and  said,  "  Fulfil  the  pledge ;  1 
have  invested  a  generation  of  submission."  We  be^o-ed 

~  &o 

him  still  to  wait,  and  he  sat  down  in  the  darkness  of  de 
spair.  God  alone  counted  the  moments  of  his  agony.  At 
last  the  gun  sounded  at  Sumter,  and  the  slave  cried, 
"  New  York  and  Massachusetts,  fulfil  the  pledge  of  your 
fathers  in  the  name  of  God  and  justice."  [Cheers.]  We 
aro  a  nation  by  all  these  considerations.  To-day,  the 
question  is,  not  merely  whether  the  negro  shall  be  free ; 
not,  certainly,  whether  New  York  and  Massachusetts  shall 
dictate  to  sister  States ;  but  it  is,  whether  the  free  lips  of 
New  York  and  Massachusetts  shall  be  protected  by  the 
laws  of  the  nation  wherever  the  stars  and  stripes  float; 
whether  this  great,  free,  model  state,  the  hope  of  the  na 
tions  and  their  polar  star,  this  experiment  of  self-govern 
ment,  this  normal  school  of  God  for  the  education  of  the 
masses,  shall  survive,  free,  just,  entire,  able  not  only  to 
free  the  slave,  but  to  pay  the  further  debt  it  owes  him,  — 
protection  as  he  rises  into  liberty,  and  a  share  in  the  great 
State  he  aided  to  found,  not  one  merely  in  its  ruins. 

Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  has  two  hundred  thousand  men  in 
arms  to-day.  I  do  not  believe  he  ever  had  over  three 
hundred  thousand.  Great  is  brag,  and  they  have  bragged 
three  hundred  thousand  into  six,  and  wooden  guns  into 
iron  ones.  He  has  got  two  hundred  thousand  in  arms  to 
day.  Before  this  body  retreats  into  Mexico,  —  before,  like 
his  great  father  in  the  Gospel,  he  goes  "  violently  down  a 
steep  place  into  the  sea"  [loud  laughter  and  applause], — he 
will  fisrht  o;reat  battles  somewhere.  Let  me  grant  you  that 

&  O  •/ 

we*  crush  that  army  out,  scatter  it,  demoralize  it,  conquer 
it,  —  where  is  it  to  go  ?  What  will  become  of  its  mate 
rials  ?  What  brought  it  together?  Hatred  of  us.  Will 
being  beaten  make  them  love  us  ?  Is  that  the  way  to 
make  men  love  you?  Can  you  whip  a  man  into  loving 


THE   STATE   OF   THE  COUNTRY.  543 

you  ?  You  whip  him  into  a  bitterer  hate.  Where  will 
that  army  go  ?  Into  a  state  of  society  more  cruel  than 
wai,  —  whose  characteristics  are  private  assassination,  burn 
ing,  stabbing,  shooting,  poisoning.  The  consequence  is, 
we  have  not  only  an  army  to  conquer,  which,  being  beaten, 
will  not  own  it,  but  we  have  a  state  of  mind  to  annihilate. 
You  know  Napoleon  said,  the  difficulty  with  the  German 
armies  was,  they  did  n't  know  when  they  were  beaten. 
We  have  a  worse  trouble  than  that.  The  South  will  not 
only  not  believe  itself  beaten,  but  the  materials  which 
make  up  its  army  will  not  retire  back  to  peaceful  pursuits. 
Where  are  they  going  to  retire  ?  They  don't  know  how 
to  do  anything.  You  might  think  they  would  go  back  to 
trade.  They  don't  know  how  to  trade  ;  they  never  bought 
nor  sold  anything.  You  might  think  they  would  go  back 
to  their  professions.  They  never  had  any.  You  might 
think  they  would  go  back  to  the  mechanic  arts.  They 
don't  know  how  to  open  a  jackknife.  [Great  merriment.] 
There  is  nowhere  for  them  to  go,  unless  we  send  them 
half  a  million  of  emancipated  blacks,  to  teach  them  how  to 
plant  cotton.  To  the  North,  war  is  a  terrible  evil.  It 
takes  the  lawyer,  the  merchant,  the  mechanic,  from  his 
industrious,  improving,  inspiring  occupation,  and  lets  him 
down  into  the  demoralization  of  a  camp  ;  but  to  the  South, 
war  is  a  gain.  The  young  man,  melted  in  sensuality, 
whose  face  was  never  lighted  up  by  a  purpose  since  his 
mother  looked  into  his  cradle,  —  the  mere  wreck  of  what 
should  have  been  a  man,  —  with  neither  ideas  nor  inspira 
tions  nor  aspirations,  was  lifted  by  the  war  to  a  higher 
level.  Did  you  ever  look  into  the  beautiful  faces  of  those 
Roman  young  men,  whose  ideas  were  bounded  by  coffee 
and  the  opera,  —  till  Garibaldi's  bugle  waked  them  to  life, 
—  beautiful,  because  human  still?  Well,  that  was  the 
South.  Over  those  wrecks  of  manhood  breathed  the 
bugle-note  of  woman  and  politics,  calling  upon  them  to 


544  THE   STATE   OF  THE   COUNTRY. 

rally  and  fight  for  an  idea,  —  Southern  independence.  It 
lifted  them,  for  the  moment,  into  something  which  looked 
like  civilization ;  it  lifted  them  into  something  that  was  a 
real  life  ;  and  war  to  them  is  a  gain.  They  go  out  of  it, 
and  they  sink  clown  a  hundred  degrees  in  the  scale  of 
civilization.  They  go  back  to  bar-rooms,  to  corner-gro 
ceries,  to  plantation  sensuality,  to  chopping  straw,  and 
calling  it  politics.  [Laughter.] 

Now,  that  South,  angry,  embittered,  having  arms  in  its 
hands,  what  is  it  going  to  do  ?  Shoot,  burn,  poison,  vent 
its  rage  on  every  side.  Guerilla  barbarities  are  but  the 
first  drops  of  the  shower,  —  the  first  pattering  drops  of  the 
flood  of  barbarism  which  will  sweep  over  those  Southern 
States,  unless  our  armies  hold  them.  When  England  con 
quered  the  Highlands,  she  held  them,  —  held  them  until 
she  could  educate  them  ;  and  it  took  a  generation.  That 
is  just  what  we  have  to  do  with  the  South  ;  annihilate  the 
old  South,  and  put  a  new  one  there.  You  do  not  annihi 
late  a  thing  by  abolishing  it.  You  must  supply  the  vacancy. 
In  the  Gospel,  when  the  chambers  were  swept  and  gar 
nished,  the  devils  came  back  because  there  were  no  angels 
there.  And  if  we  should  sweep  Virginia  clean,  Jeff  Davis 
would  come  back  with  seven  other  devils  worse  than  him 
self,  if  he  could  find  them,  and  occupy  it,  unless  you  put 
free  institutions  there.  Some  men  say,  begin  it  by  export 
ing  the  blacks.  If  you  do,  you  export  the  very  fulcrum 
of  the  lever  ;  you  export  the  very  best  material  to  begin- 
with.  Something  has  been  said  about  the  Alleghanies 
moving  toward  the  ocean  as  the  symbol  of  colonization. 
Let  me  change  it.  The  nation  that  should  shovel  down 

O 

the  Alleghanies,  and  then  build  them  up  again,  would  be 
a  wise  nation  compared  with  the  one  that  should  export 
four  million  blacks,  and  then  import  four  million  of  Chinese 
to  take  their  places.  To  dig  a  hole,  and  then  fill  it  up 
again,  to  build  a  wall  for  the  purpose  of  beating  out  your 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY.          545 

brains  against  it,  would  be  Shakespearian  wisdom  compared 
with  such  an  undertaking.  I  want  the  blacks  as  the  very 
basis  of  the  effort  to  regenerate  the  South.  They  know 
every  inlet,  the  pathway  of  every  wood,  the  whole  coun 
try  is  a  map  at  night  to  their  instinct.  When  Burnside 
unfurled  the  Stars  and  Stripes  in  sight  of  Roanoke,  he 
saw  a  little  canoe  paddling  off  to  him,  which  held  a  single 
black  man  ;  and  in  that  contraband  hand,  victory  was 
brought  to  the  United  States  of  America,  led  by  Burn- 
side.  He  came  to  the  Ilhode  Island  general,  and  said  : 
"  This  is  deep  water,  and  that  is  shoal  ;  this  is  swamp,  that 
is  firm  land,  and  that  is  wood  ;  there  are  four  thousand 
men  here,  and  one  thousand  there."  The  whole  country 
was  mapped  out,  as  an  engineer  could  not  have  done  it  in 
a  month,  in  the  memory  of  that  man.  And  Burnside  was 
loyal  to  humanity,  and  believed  him.  [Applause.]  Dis 
loyal  to  the  Northern  pulpit,  disloyal  to  the  prejudice  of 
his  race,  he  was  loyal  to  the  instincts  of  our  common  na 
ture,  knew  that  man  would  tell  him  the  truth,  and  obeyed 
him.  The  soldiers  forded  where  the  negro  bade  them, 
the  vessels  anchored  in  the  deep  waters  he  pointed  out, 
and  that  victory  was  planned,  if  there  was  any  strategy 
about  it,  in  the  brain  of  that  contraband  [applause]  ;  and 
to-day  he  stands  at  the  right  hand  of  Burnside,  clad  in 
uniform,  long  before  Hunter  armed  a  negro,  with  the 
pledge  of  the  General  that,  as  long  as  he  lives  and  has 
anything  to  eat,  the-  man  who  gave  him  Roanoke  shall 
have  half  a  loaf.  [Enthusiastic  applause.]  Do  you  sup 
pose,  that  if  I  multiply  that  instance  by  four  million,  the 
American  people  can  afford  to  give  up  such  assistance  ? 
Of  course  not.  We  are  to  take  military  possession  of  the 
territory,  and  we  are  to  work  out  the  great  problem  of 
unfolding  a  nation's  life.  We  want  the  four  million  of 
blacks,  —  a  people  instinctively  on  our  side,  ready  and 
skilled  to  work ;  the  only  element  the  South  has  which 
35 


546  THE   STATE  OF   THE   COUNTRY. 

belongs  to  the  nineteenth  century.  You  never  can  mis 
take  them.  It  used  to  be  said,  in  old  antislavery  times, 
that  if  a  fugitive  negro  saw  a  Quaker  coat,  his  heart  beat 
easy,  —  he  knew  he  was  safe.  I  think  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  can  float  lazily  down  and  kiss  the  standard,  all 
over  the  South,  when  a  black  face  is  in  sight. 

But  I  am  not  speaking  for  the  negro ;  I  am  not  asking 
now  for  his  rights ;  I  am  asking  for  the  use  of  him.  I 
want  him  for  the  future.  We  have  to  make  over  the 
State  of  South  Carolina,  and  we  are  not  sure  there  is  a 
white  man  in  it  who  is  on  our  side.  Do  you  remember 
that  significant  telegram  of  McClellan  from  Yorktown,  — 
and  it  was  only  the  repetition  of  a  dozen  telegrams  that 
preceded  it,  substantially  this  :  —  "  To  the  Secretary  of 
War :  Sir,  we  have  taken  Yorktown ;  only  one  single 
white  man  in  it."  He  does  not  think  it  necessary  to  say 
there  were  some  thousands  of  negroes.  Of  course  there 
were.  They  stayed  where  liberty  was  coming,  and  ideas, 
and  civilization,  and  men  who  worked  with  their  hands 
and  their  brains,  as  they  themselves  did.  They  recog 
nized  in  the  Yankee  a  brother  mechanic.  [Laughter  and 
applause.]  They  said :  "  Here  are  men  who  don't  know 
how  to  do  anything  but  eat,  and  they  are  going.  The 
people  who  are  coming  are  men  who  know  how  to  manu 
facture,  to  create,  and  we,  the  creators  of  the  South,  stay 
to  welcome  the  creators  of  the  North."  [Applause.]  But 
that  one  poor  solitary  white  man,  who  always  remains 
[laughter,]  — just  like 

"  The  last  rose  of  summer, 
Left  blooming  alone," 

[great  merriment,]  —  he  is  only  suggestive  of  that  other 
kindred  and  friendly  race  which  never  flies. 

Colonize  the  blacks  !  A  man  might  as  well  colonize  his 
hands ;  or  when  the  robber  enters  his  house,  he  might  as 
well  colonize  his  revolver.  What  we  want  is  systematic, 


THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY.  547 

national  action.  Confiscate  those  lands.  Colonize  them. 
Sell  them  with  the  guaranty  of  the  government  to  the 
loyal  Massachusetts  man  or  New  Yorker.  Say  to  him, 
"  There  is  a  deed  as  good  as  the  Union.  Carry  there  your 
ploughshares,  seeds,  schools,  sewing-machines."  Carry  free 
labor  to  that  soil,  and  you  carry  New  York  to  Virginia, 
and  slavery  cannot  go  back.  I  want  to  supply  the  va 
cancy  which  this  war  must  leave  in  every  Slave  State  it 
subdues.  The  Slave  States,  to  my  mind,  are  men  and 
territory,  and  nothing  else.  The  rebellion  has  crushed 
out  all  civil  forms.  New  government  is  to  go  there.  /  It 
seems  to  me  the  idlest  national  work,  childish  work',  for 
the  President,  in  bo-peep  secrecy,  to  hide  himself  in  the 
White  House  and  launch  a  proclamation  at  us  on  a  first 
day  of  January.  The  nation  should  have  known  it  sixty 
days  before,  and  should  have  provided  fit  machinery  for 
the  reception  of  three  million  bondmen  into  the  civil  state. 
If  we  launch  a  ship,  we  build  straight  well-oiled  ways 
upon  which  it  may  glide  with  facility  into  its  native  ele 
ment.  So  when  a  nation  is  to  be  born,  the  usual  aid  of 
government  should  have  been  extended  to  prepare  a  path 
way  through  which  to  step  upon  the  platform  of  civil 
equality.  It  is  nonsense  without.  /We  cannot  expect  in 
hours  to  cover  the  place  of  centuries;'  It  is  a  great  prob 
lem  before  us.  We  must  take  up  the  South  and  organize 
it  anew.  It  is  not  the  men  we  have  to  fight,  —  it  is  the 
state  of  society  that  produces  them.  He  would  be  a  fool 
who,  having  a  fever,  scraped  his  tongue  and  took  no 
medicine.  Killing  Davis  is  only  scraping  the  tongue ; 
killing  slavery  is  taking  a  wet-sheet  pack,  destroying  the 
very  disease.  But  when  we  have  done  it,  there  remains 
behind  the  still  greater  and  more  momentous  problem, 
whether  we  have  the  strength,  the  balance,  the  virtue, 
the  civilization,  to  absorb  six  millions  of  ignorant,  embit 
tered,  bedeviled  Southerners,  and  transmute  them  into 


548  THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY. 

honest,  decent,  educated,  well-behaved,  Christian  mechan 
ics,  worthy  to  be  the  brothers  of  New  England  Yankees. 
[Applause.]  That  is  the  real  problem.  To  that  this 
generation  should  address  itself.  You  know  men  take 
their  floating  capital,  and  fund  it  in  a  permanent  invest 
ment.  Now  the  floating  virtue  of  forty  thousand  pulpits, 
the  floating  wealth  of  these  nineteen  millions  of  people, 
the  floating  result,  big  or  little,  of  Tract  Societies,  is  to  be 
funded,  —  like  sensible  heat,  is  to  be  transformed  into  in 
visible,  latent  heat ;  it  is  to  pass  away  into  the  Southern 
capacity  of  being  educated.  The  water  is  to  sink  to  its 
level.  Harvard  College,  whose  men  can  think, — though 
so  often  on  the  wrong  side,  —  is  to  go  down  half  way, 
and  meet  South  Carolina,  saying  her  A,  B,  C.  That  is 
what  you  are  to  do. 

It  will  take  time  undoubtedly.  The  nation  is  able  to  do 
it.  The  vigor  and  good  sense  and  strength  of  endurance 
of  these  Northern  classes  is  equal  to  the  achievement,  if 
we  can  only  have  leaders ;  but  we  have  none. 

The  government  looks  to  the  people  for  its  initiative. 
Lord  Lyons  said  (substantially)  in  his  dispatch  to  Earl 
Russell :  "  The  Republican  government  dare  not  initiate 
a  policy ;  it  looks  outward  and  asks  what  its  opponents  will 
consent  to."  That  is  now  the  condition  of  the  govern 
ment.  Hence  the  necessity  of  outspoken,  perpetual, 
constant  education  of  public  opinion.  I  do  not  believe  in 
the  government  at  Washington.  I  believe  in  the  nation, 
I  believe  in  events,  I  believe  in  the  inevitable  tendency  of 
these  coming  ten  years  toward  liberty  and  Union.  But  it 
is  to  be  done  as  England  did  it  in  1640,  by  getting  rid 
gradually,  man  by  man,  of  those  who  don't  believe  in 
progress,  but  live  and  mean  to  live  in  the  past.  And  as 
man  by  man  of  that  class  retires,  and  we  bring  to  the  front 
men  who  are  earnest  in  the  present,  victory,  strength,  and 
peace  are  to  be  the  result.  Now,  for  the  present,  I  believe 


THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY.  549 

in  Hooker.  [Loud  applause.]  Men  say  he  lias  faults, — 
faults  which  some  of  his  predecessors  did  not  have. 
[Laughter.]  Perhaps  he  has,  but  in. my  opinion  a  dia 
mond  with  a  flaw  is  better  than  a  pebble  without.  [Ap 
plause.]  I  do  not  set  one  defeat  against  him.  I  think, 
as  Lord  Bacon  says,  that  a  soldier's  honor  should  be  of  a 
strong  web  which  slight  matters  will  not  stick  to.  I  be 
lieve  Hooker's  is  of  that  kind.  He  means  to  fight ;  he 
knows  how  to  fight;  and  those  two  are  new  elements  at 
the  head  of  the  army.  On  the  other  side  there  are  three 
elements.  Lee  means  to  fight,  and  knows  how  to  fight, 
and  he  is  deadly  in  earnest.  We  have  had  men  who 
neither  knew  how  to  fight,  nor  meant  to  fight,  —  of  no 
ability.  Now  we  have  ability  to  match  the  other  side. 
We  yet  lack  earnestness,  ideas,  a  willingness  to  sacrifice 
everything,  a  readiness  to  accept  the  issue,  courage  and 
industry  in  thinking.  We  have  now  two  Commanders-in- 
chief.  They  both  live  in  Washington.  The  sad  news 
reaches  us  to-day  that  one  means  to  take  the  field. 
[Laughter.]  Lincoln  and  Halleck,  —  they  sit  in  Wash 
ington,  commanders-in-chief,  exercising  that  disastrous 
influence  which  even  a  Bonaparte  would  exercise  on  a 
battle,  if  he  tried  to  fight  it  by  telegraph  a  hundred  miles 
distant.  But  now  it  is  said  one  of  them  means  to  take  the 
field.  Heaven  forbid  !  [Applause.]  The  difference  be 
tween  Halleck  and  Fremont  is  just  this :  one  has  not 
learned  anything  since  he  graduated  at  West  Point,  and 
does  not  wish  to.  As  long  as  he  rules,  West  Point,  dead 
lumber,  rules.  An  old  adage  says,  "  A  fool  is  never  a 
great  fool  till  he  has  learned  Latin."  And  so  a  man  is 
never  utterly  incorrigible  till  he  graduates  at  West  Point. 
[Laughter.]  General  Halleck  does  not  mean  to  under 
take  the  labor  of  thinking.  He  is  too  indolent  to  go  about 
to  examine  a  new  idea.  It  is  enough  for  him  that  it  was 
not  in  the  text-books  when  he  graduated.  [Laughter.] 


650  THE  STATE   OF  THE   COUNTRY. 

Battles  were  not  fought  so  when  he  was  taught,  and  if  he 
is  beaten  according  to  the  book,  he  is  willing  to  be  beaten. 
[Laughter.]  The  German  commanders  complained  of 
Napoleon,  when  he  first  launched  into  the  battle-field, 
that  he  violated  all  the  rules.  Now  his  Missouri  rival 
occupied  the  nineteenth  century,  and  thought  out  the 
issues  for  himself,  —  had  the  labor  of  meeting  a  new  con 
tingency.  He  went  to  the  head  of  the  army  a  living  man, 
—  not  a  dead  book.  I  am  beyond  likes  and  dislikes.  The 
day  is  too  serious  for  antipathies  or  likings.  All  these 
men  are  nothing  but  dead  lumber,  to  be  thrown  into  the 
gulf,  that  the  nation,  over  the  path  their  bodies  make,  may 
march  like  an  army  with  banners  to  liberty  and  peace. 
[Applause.]  But  never  will  this  rebellion  be  put  down 
while  West  Point  rules  at  Washington.  [Applause.]  It 
does  rule.  That  second  Commander-in-chief  cuts  off 
everything  which  outgoes  his  own  routine.  There  are 
two  great  classes  irr  the  army  and  in  the  state :  one  is, 
such  a  man  as  Halleck,  who  hates  negroes,  spurns  novel 
ties,  distrusts  ideas,  rejects  everything  but  red  tape.  The 
others  are  Hamilton,  Butler,  Phelps,  and  Fremont  [loud 
applause],  Sigel,  who  mean  that  this  Union  shall  mean 
justice  at  any  rate,  and  that  if  it  does  not  mean  justice  it 
shall  not  exist ;  who  know  no  nation  except  one  that 
secures  liberty.  [Applause.]  These  are  the  men  who 
are  to  shape  the  policy  and  guide  the  thunderbolts  of  the 
government.  [Applause.]  The  cook  takes  an  onion  and 
peels  off  layer  after  layer  till  she  gets  to  the  sweet,  sound 
vegetable.  So  you  will  have  to  peel  off  Sewarcl  and  Hal 
leck,  Blair  and  Chase  [laughter],  till  you  get  to  the  sound 
national  element  of  civil  and  military  purpose,  the  earnest 
belief,  the  single-hearted,  intense  devotion  to  victory,  the 
entire  belief  in  justice,  which  can  cope  with  Stonewall 
Jackson.  [Applause.]  Never  till  then  shall  we  succeed. 
I  have  compared  General  Halleck  and  General  Fremont. 


THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY.  551 

You  may  take  another  parallel.  One  is  Seward,  and 
another  is  Butler.  Seward  does  not  believe  in  war,  but 
in  diplomacy  or  compromise.  He  has  prophesied  again 
and  again  that  this  war,  like  the  divisions  of  former  times, 
could  be  quieted  in  sixty  or  ninety  days.  He  thought  so  ; 
if  he  had  not,  he  never  would  have  risked  his  fame  as  a 
statesman  upon  the  prophecy.  He  said  by  the  voice  of  a 
regular  army  officer  in  the  cabin  of  that  ship  which  went 
down  to  dismantle  Norfolk,  when  foreign-bred  soldiers 
begged  the  American  officers  to  stop  and  give  them  three 
hundred  men  to  save  two  thousand  cannon  from  the 
armies  of  the  Confederates,  and  guaranteed  to  take  that 
place  and  hold  it  three  or  six  months,  with  two  hundred 
men,  —  one  of  his  class  took  a  gentleman  into  the  cabin 
and  said,  "  You  don't  understand  this  thing  ;  this  is  not  a 
war,  it  is  a  quarrel :  we  have  had  a  dozen  of  them  ;  we 
shall  get  over  it  in  sixty  days."  Seward  believes  it  yet ; 
he  receives  commissioners ;  he  sends  Frenchmen  to  Rich 
mond  to  note  terms ;  he  sends  letters  abroad  dealing  with 
rebels  as  equals  in  fact.  Butler  is  the  first  man  who 
ever  hung  a  rebel  [loud  applause], — and  it  ought  to  be 
recorded  on  his  gravestone.  If  I  were  a  politician  and  a 
general,  I  would  not  live  an  hour  until  I  was  his  twin. 
[Laughter.]  Let  it  go  down  to  history,  that  one  third  of 
the  nation  burst  into  insurrection,  and  there  was  but  one 
man,  and  he  a  Democrat,  who  dared  to  hang  a  felon. 
[Loud  applause.]  A  government  in  arms  against  crimi 
nals  who  have  wasted  its  treasures  and  filled  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  martyred  patriot  graves,  —  rebels,  not 
belligerents.  Now  in  the  two  distinctions  between  Hal- 
leek,  routine,  and  Fremont,  P helps,  Butler,  realities,  is 
the  change  needed  for  the  future  in  military  affairs  ;  in 
the  difference  between  Seward,  the  politician,  and  Butler, 
the  government,  is  the  change  needed  in  civil  affairs.  If 
Seward  is  a  Republican,  God  grant  us  a  Democratic  sue- 


652  THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY. 

cessor.  [Laughter.]  I  want  somebody  to  occupy  the 
Presidential  chair  who  believes  in  the  government  and  in 
the  people,  —  who  will  act  without  casting  his  eyes  over 
his  shoulders  to  see  how  far  the  people  will  support  him. 
We  need  some  one  who  believes  in  God  and  the  people,  — 
in  justice  and  the  masses.  The  Democrat  believes  in  the 
masses ;  the  Whig  is  neither  one  nor  the  other.  We 
want  leaders  that  initiate,  —  that  actually  lead.  Friends, 
my  belief  is,  that  you  and  I  are  bound  to  create  an  exact 
ing,  imperative  public  opinion  which  shall  compel  the  gov 
ernment  to  the  adoption  of  such  measures  and  such  men. 
I  say  such  men,  because,  though  I  believe  in  events,  which 
are  stronger  than  cabinets,  and  are  bearing  us  onward 
whether  we  will  or  not,  I  believe  also  in  men  as  harmo 
nizing  the  issue  of  events.  Let  me  make  the  Generals,  and 
I  don't  care  who  makes  the  proclamations.  Only  let  me 
put  at  the  head  of  the  advancing  columns  of  the  Union 
certain  men  that  I  could  name,  and  the  Cabinet  at  Wash 
ington  may  shut  themselves  up  and  go  to  sleep  with  Rip 
Van  Winkle  till  1872.  [Laughter.]  For  I  know  those 
one  blast  of  whose  bugle-horns  were  worth  a  million 
men,  —  only  put  them  in  the  heart  of  the  rebellion,  where 
our  armies  ought  to  be.  I  do  not  like  to  fight  en  the  rim 
of  the  wheel  and  let  the  enemy  rest  on  the  hub.  [Laugh 
ter.]  I  am  no  anaconda  fancier.  [Laughter.]  I  would 
be  at  the  hub.  I  would  put  men,  whose  names  you  know 
too  well,  among  the  black  masses  of  the  Carolinas  and 
Mississippi,  and  fight  outward,  grinding  the  rebellion  to 
powder.  To  hurt  the  rebellion  by  bringing  the  negro  into 
the  war,  does  not  mean  merely  troops  ;  it  means  localities. 
When  we  bring  the  negro  into  the  war,  we  fight  in  his 
home,  in  the  Gulf  States,  where  he  ought  to  fight.  The 
heart  of  the  rebellion  is  where  the  negro  is.  It  is  there 

c5 

where  our  army  should  stand ;  if  victorious,  the  bottom  of 
the  tub  is  out.     And  you  know   whose   name   the   slave 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY.          553 

cherishes  like  a  household  word  in  every  hovel,  and  at 
whose  bidding  he  will  rise  to  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  Will 
the  slave  fight  ?  Well,  if  any  man  asks  you,  tell  him  no. 
Will  he  work  ?  If  any  man  asks  you,  tell  him  no.  But 
if  he  asks  you  whether  the  negro  will  fight,  tell  him  yes. 
[Applause.]  If  he  asks  you  whether  the  negro  will  work, 
tell  him  yes,  —  work  even  for  patriotism  without  wages, 
as  he  has  worked  at  Fortress  Monroe,  the  United  States 
promising  him  $  10  a  month,  keeping  the  first  $  3  for  any 
stray  contrabands  who  might  join  him,  taking  the  second 
$  4  for  clothing  the  contraband  himself,  and  the  other  $  3 
Uncle  Sam  keeps.  [Laughter.] 

But  men  say,  "  This  is  a  mean  thing  ;  nineteen  millions 
of  people  pitched  against  eight  millions  of  Southerners, 
white  men,  and  can't  whip  them,  and  now  begin  to  call  on 
the  negroes."  Is  that  the  right  statement  ?  Look  at  it. 
What  is  the  South's  strength  ?  glie  has  eio-ht  millions  of 

O  O 

whites.  She  has  the  sympathy  of  foreign  powers.  She 
has  the  labor  of  four  millions  of  slaves.  What  strength 

o 

has  the  North  ?  Divided  about  equally  —  that  is  a  very 
poor  statement  for  your  side  —  into  Republicans  and  Dem 
ocrats  ;  the  Republicans  willing  to  go  but  half  way,  and 
the  Democrats  not  willing  to  go  at  all.  [Laughter.]  I 
will  tell  you  what  it  is.  It  is  like  two  men  fighting.  We 
will  call  them  Jonathan  and  Charles.  Jonathan  is  the 
North.  His  right  hand,  the  Democratic  party,  he  holds 
behind  him.  His  left  hand,  his  own  tenderness  of  con 
science  uses  to  keep  the  slaves  down.  That  is  how  he  is 
to  fight.  No,  that  is  not  all.  Upon  his  shoulders  is 
strapped  the  West  Point  Academy,  like  a  stone  of  a  hun 
dred  weight.  [Laughter.]  The  South  stands  with  both 
hands,  holding  loaded  revolvers,  and,  lest  she  should  lose 
any  time,  John  Bull  is  behind  with  additional  pistols  to 
hand  the  moment  she  needs  them.  Those  are  the  two 
powers  which  are  fighting  this  battle.  Now  the  question 


554  THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY. 

is,  whether  in  this  great  conflict,  —  not  a  boy's  play  be 
tween  A  and  B,  but  the  great  struggle  for  the  control  of 
this  continent  in  behalf  of  free  labor,  —  is  it  not  the  duty 
of  wise  men  to  use  every  means  within  their  reach  ?  This 
is  a  contest  between  slaveholders  and  free  labor,  —  nothing 
more  ;  and  in  that  contest  the  people,  as  in  every  contest 
against  an  aristocracy,  are  bound  in  their  own  right,  in  the 
right  of  their  children,  in  the  right  of  the  great  interests 
of  the  world  which  hang  upon  their  success,  to  bestir 
themselves  to  understand,  and  to  use  the  moment  they  see 
it,  every  weapon  within  their  reach.  I  contend,  therefore, 
that  it  is  both  constitutional  and  rightful,  and,  more  than 
that,  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary,  that  this  government 
should,  in  the  hour  of  its  peril,  call  upon  the  four  millions 
of  blacks  to  aid  it  in  a  struggle  which  means  liberty  to 
them.  I  am  not  speaking  now  as  an  Abolitionist.  I  hold 
the  hour  to  be  a  momentously  serious  one.  Deeply  in 
debt,  with  a  terrible  loss  of  blood,  having  fixed  foul  shame 
upon  the  cause  of  democracy  by  our  indecision  or  delay, 
with  a  future  before  us  complexed  by  every  variety  of 
dangers,  the  question  is  how  we  shall  pilot  the  ship  of 
state,  the  hope  of  the  world,  through  this  storm.  The 
silver  lining  of  the  dark  cloud  that  overhangs  us  is  the 
irradicable  loyalty  of  four  millions  of  bondmen  who  hold 
the  scale  in  their  hands. 

Throw  aside  all  these  idle  quibbles  :  a  mighty  work  is 
before  us ;  welcome  every  helper.  Cease  to  lean  on  the 
government  at  Washington.  It  is  a  broken  reed,  if  not 
worse.  We  are  lost  unless  the  people  are  able  to  ride  out 
this  storm  without  captain  or  pilot.  Yes,  in  spite  of  some 
thing  worse  at  the  helm.  The  President  is  an  honest 
man  ;  that  is,  he  is  Kentucky  honest,  and  that  is  neces 
sarily  a  very  different  thing  from  Massachusetts  or  New 
York  honesty.  A  man  cannot  get  above  the  atmosphere 
in  which  he  is  born.  Did  you  ever  see  the  Life  of  Luther 


THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY.  555 

in  four  volumes  of  seven  hundred  pages  each  ?  The  first 
volume  contains  an  account  of  the  mineralogy  of  his  native 
country,  the  trees  that  grow  there,  the  flowers,  the  aver 
age  length  of  human  life,  the  color  of  the  hair,  how  much 
rain  falls,  the  range  of  the  thermometer,  &c.,  and  in  the 
second  volume  Luther  is  born.  That  was  laying  the 
foundation  of  Luther's  character.  Lincoln  was  born  in 
Kentucky,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  his  honesty  in  Ken 
tucky.  He  is  honest,  with  that  allowance.  He  means  to 
do  his  duty,  and  within  the  limit  of  the  capacity  God  has 
given  him  he  has  struggled  on,  and  has  led  the  people 
struggling  on,  up  to  this  weapon,  partial  emancipation, 
which  they  now  hold  glittering  in  their  right  hand.  But 
we  must  remember  the  very  prejudices  and  moral  callous 
ness  which  made  him  in  1860  an  available  candidate,  when 
angry  and  half-educated  parties  were  struggling  for  vic 
tory,  necessarily  makes  him  a  poor  leader,  —  rather  no 
leader  at  all,  —  in  a  crisis  like  this.  I  have  no  confidence 
in  the  counsels  about  him.  I  have  no  confidence  in  the 
views  of  your  son  of  York  who  stands  at  his  right  hand 
to  guide  the  vessel  of  state  in  this  tremendous  storm. 
[Hisses.]  That  is  right.  I  honor  every  man. who  ex 
presses  his  opinion.  I  express  mine  ;  I  would  have  every 
man  express  his  dissent.  I  am  saying  nothing  of  the  mo 
tives  of  Mr.  Seward,  nothing.  When  a  man  is  dying,  an 
honest  mistake  in  the  medicine  is  as  bad  as  poison.  The 
question  is  whether  his  is  the  statesmanship  of  the  hour, 
and  if  it  is  not,  then,  on  every  theory  of  parliamentary 
government,  he  is  bound  to  retire  from  his  position  and 
let  another  man  occupy  it.  He  has  never  uttered  a 
prophecy  which  events  have  not  falsified,  nor  initiated 
a  policy  which  he  has  not  himself  been  obliged  to  forego. 
If  the  hope  of  the  nation  rested  on  the  Cabinet  he 
leads,  I  should  despair ;  but  our  government  is  not  at 
Washington,  neither  the  brains  nor  the  vigor  of  Wash- 


556  THE   STATE   OF  THE   COUNTRY. 

ington  guide  the  people.  It  only  blocks  the  path  of  the 
real  government,  —  the  people,  —  the  people  whose  sub 
stratum  purpose,  underlying  all  honest  parties  and  cliques, 
is  to  save  the  Union  by  doing  justice  and  securing  liberty 
to  all.  At  least,  if  all  do  not  consciously  plan  this,  the 
vast  majority  are  willing  for  it.  I  know  there  are  those 
standing  to-day  among  us  who  would  stretch  their  hands 
over  two  hundred  thousand  martyr  graves  and  clasp  hands 
with  the  rebels.  That  element  is  to  be  put  under  our 
feet,  with  the  declaration  that  the  helm  is  ours,  by  party 
right,  by  natural  right,  by  the  right  of  absolute  justice ; 
and  while  God  gives  us  the  power,  we  will  use  it  boldly  in 
the  service  of  freedom  and  the  Union.  [Applause.]  The 
whole  social  system  of  the  Slave  States  is  to  be  taken  to 
pieces ;  every  bit  of  it.  General  Butler  tells  us  that  in 
Louisiana  it  has  gone  to  pieces.  [Great  applause,  fol 
lowed  by  an  attempt  at  cheering  for  Butler,  not  fully 
understood.]  He  deserves  a  better  cheer  than  that  [three 
cheers  for  General  Butler  called  for,  and  enthusiastically 
responded  to]  for  this  reason :  he  is  almost  the  only  gen 
eral  in  our  service  who  acts  upon  the  principle  that  we 
are  all  right  and  the  traitors  all  wrong.  [Renewed  ap 
plause.]  Most  of  our  other  generals  act  upon  the  princi 
ple  that  the  rebels  are  half  right,  and  we  are  half  wrong. 
When  Butler  was  at  New  Orleans  last  summer,  he  assem 
bled  some  fifty  slaveholders  in  the  parlors  of  the  St. 
Charles  Hotel,  and  said  to  them :  "  Don't  you  indulge  the 
idea  that  there  is  a,Democratic  party  in  the  North  making 
a  bridge  back  to  Washington.  I  am  a  Democrat,  and 
shall  always  be  a  Democrat ;  and  I  tell  you  I  will  burn 
every  house  in  the  State  of  Louisiana,  and  put  every 
negro's  right  hand  upon  every  master's  throat,  before  I 
take  down  that  banner  and  go  home."  [Loud  and  long 
cheering.]  Why  is  General  Butler  idle  ?  Who  can 
tell  ?  Abraham  Lincoln  can't ;  he  says  he  knows  nothing 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY.          557 

about  it.  [Laughter.]  General  Hallcck  can't ;  he  says 
he  knows  nothing  about  it.  William  H.  Seward  can't ; 
he  says  he  knows  nothing  about  it.  One  of  the  best  generals 
in  the  service,  the  man  who  held  the  third  city  in  the 
empire  in  his  right  hand  like  a  lamb,  that  man  comes 
home  to  the  Capital,  and  cannot  find  a  man  in  the  Cabinet 
who  will  take  the  responsibility  of  saying,  "  I  advised  his 
recall,"  or  will  tell  him  the  reason  why  he  was  recalled. 
[Three  more  cheers  for  Butler.]  Why  is  he,  one  of  the 
ablest  of  the  very  few  able  men  this  war  has  thrown  to 
the  surface,  —  why  is  he  idle  ? 

General  Hamilton  had  the  promise  of  the  government  at 
Washington,  over  and  over  again,  that  he  might  go  and 
shut  the  back  door  of  the  rebellion,  Texas,  out  of  which 
the  traitors  mean  to  fly  when  they  are  beaten,  and  through 
which  Vicksburg  gets  her  strength  to-day.  Why  has  he 
not  gone  ?  Your  own  great  fellow-citizen  goes  to  Washing 
ton  under  the  pledge  of  the  President,  too  much  in  a  hurry 
to  allow  him  to  leave  Washington  for  six  hours,  stays  for  a 
week,  and  comes  back  without  a  command.  Why  ?  Be 
cause  Abraham  Lincoln  is  not  President  of  the  United 
States,  or  because  he  too  ardently  longs  and  plans  to  be  so 
again.  Either  because  the  war  is  henceforth  subordinate 
to  a  policy  dictated  by  the  next  Presidential  canvass,  or 
because  behind  President  Lincoln,  curbing  his  purpose, 
making  conditions  which  balk  his  designs,  making  him 
doubt  the  purpose  and  the  strength  of  the  North,  standing 
round  him  in  civil  and  military  positions,  are  men  who  do 
not  mean  that  this  battle  shall  be  bravely  and  gallantly 
fought  through.  The  worst  rebellion  in  the  land  is  the 

O  O 

rebellion  of  the  Cabinet  and  Generals  against  common 
sense  and  justice.  Cromwell  never  succeeded  until  the 
Long  Parliament  sloughed  off  every  man  who  believed  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  and  left  nothing  but  democrats  be 
hind.  We  shall  never  succeed  until  we  slough  off  every- 


558  THE   STATE   OF   THE   COUNTRY. 

thing  that  believes  in  the  past,  and  bring  to  the  front 
everything  that  believes  there  is  but  one  remedy,  —  that 
is,  to  save  the  Union  on  the  basis  of  liberty.  [Cheers.] 
I  believe  that  the  President  may  do  anything  to  save  the 
Union.  He  may  take  a  man's  houses,  his  lands,  his  bank- 
stock,  his  horses,  his  slaves,  —  anything  to  save  the  Union  ; 
the  government  may  make  every  slave  a  free  man,  no 
matter  where  he  is,  Kentucky  or  Louisiana,  now  or  to 
morrow,  with  compensation  or  without.  We  need  one 
step  further,  —  an  act  of  Congress  abolishing  slavery 
wherever  our  flag  waves.  The  same  war  power  and  mil 
itary  necessity  which  made  the  proclamation  constitutional 
authorizes  this  act  as  much.  There  is  but  one  thing  the 
government  can't  do  to  save  the  nation,  and  that  is  to 
make  a  free  man  into  a  slave  ;  everything  else  is  within 
its  power. 

I  doubted  somewhat  when  I  heard  the  news  from  the 
Kappahannock,  until  I  saw  that  reverses  had  taught 
the  nation  where  its  strength  lay.  God  grant  us  so 
many  reverses  that  the  government  may  learn  its  duty. 
God  grant  us  that  the  war  mav  never  end  till  it  leaves 

O  «' 

us  on  the  solid  granite  of  impartial  liberty  and  justice. 
[Cheers.]  The  government  which  has  had  two  years 
of  experience,  of  warning,  and  of  advice,  without  profit 
ing  by  it,  must  abide  the  consequences.  In  the  words 
of  the  old  proverb,  "  He  that  won't  be  ruled  by  the  rud 
der  must  be  ruled  by  the  rock."  [Applause.]  If  they 
will  not  be  ruled  by  wise  counsels,  they  must  abide  dis 
aster  ;  if  they  won't  hear  advice,  they  must  expect  re 
verses.  What  we  have  to  teach  Washington  is,  that  such 
is  the  full  purpose  of  the  millions,  and  under  it  and  in  it  is 
the  certainty  of  success,  —  the  millions,  not  the  leaders. 
In  my  judgment,  unless  the  sky  soon  clears,  the  Republi 
can  party  has  proved  its  own  incapacity,  —  written  IcJia- 
lod  on  its  own  brow.  Judging  by  the  past,  whose  will 


THE  STATE   OF   THE  COUNTRY.  559 

and  wit  can  we  trust?  None  of  them,  —  I  am  utterly 
impartial,  —  neither  President  nor  Cabinet  nor  Senate. 
Peel  off  Seward,  peel  off  Halleck,  peel  off  Blair,  peel  off 
Sumner, — yes,  Massachusetts  Senators  as  well  as  others. 
No,  I  will  not  say  peel  off  our  Massachusetts  Senators  ; 
but  I  will  say  their  recent  action  has  very  materially  less 
ened  my  confidence  in  their  intelligence  and  fidelity.  I 
will  tell  you  why.  When  the  government  called  on  New 
England  for  a  negro  regiment,  and  we  went  from  county 
to  county  urging  the  blacks  to  enlist,  one  Massachusetts 
Colonel  dared  to  say,  down  in  South  Carolina,  in  the  face 
of  the  enemy,  that  he  had  rather  be  whipped  without 
negroes  than  conquer  at  their  side,  —  a  Massachusetts 
Colonel,  in  that  hour  of  emergency  and  critical  issue. 
His  case  within  twenty  days  went  before  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States,  and  the  very  week  that  his  apology 
was  filed  in  the  War  Office  at  Washington,  Massachusetts 
Senators  begged  their  reluctant  brothers  to  make  him  a 
Brigadier-General.  Yes,  Massachusetts  Senators,  thor 
oughly  informed  and  put  upon  their  guard,  against  the 
repeated  remonstrance  of  their  fellow-Senators,  insisted 
on  rewarding  the  mutineer.  ["  Shame,  shame."]  A 
private,  ignorant,  uneducated,  just  mustered  into  the  ser 
vice,  mutinied  in  the  streets  of  Boston,  and  Colonel  Lowell 
shot  him  rightfully.  [Cheers.]  A  Massachusetts  Colonel 
mutinied  in  the  face  of  the  enemy,  and  a  Massachusetts 
Senator  made  him  a  Brigadier-General.  Such  Republi 
canism  will  never  put  down  the  rebellion.*  [Cheers.] 

*  Colonel  Stevenson  said  he  had  rather  be  whipped  with  white  men 
than  conquer  with  black  men  ;  and  General  Hunter  took  away  his  sword. 
When  Adjutant-General  Thomas  went  to  the  Southwest  to  muster  negroes 
into  our  ranks,  he  lifted  his  index  finger,  and,  pointing  to  Washington, 
said,  "  The  wind  blows  North  there,"  and  from  Brigadier  to  Lieutenant 
every  man  closed  his  lips  and  denied  all  prejudice  against  color.  Negro 
phobia  stabs  nearer  the  heart  of  the  government,  has  more  power  to  wound, 
than  Davis  has.  There  will  be  none  of  it  in  our  army  at  least,  the  moment 


560          THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 

Spite  of  these  sad,  sad  short-comings,  I  have  hope. 
Iron,  they  say,  cannot  be  made  to  sink  in  the  current 
of  Niagara.  The  Cataract  tosses  it  like  a  chip,  and  bears 
it  onward.  The  Cabinet  is  unredeemed  inefficiency,  — 
heavy  as  molten  and  doubly-hammered  iron  ;  but  in  the 
Niagara  of  1863  it  is  tossed  onward  like  a  chip.  No 
thanks  to  it,  but  to  the  Niagara  which  will  not  be  re 
sisted.  Neither  the  calculating  or  stupid  stand-still-ism 
of  the  Cabinet,  nor  the  weakness  nor  the  blunders  of 
our  own  best  leaders,  can  long  delay  us.  In  time  they 
will  punish  the  Colonel  who  treads  on  a  negro  as  se 
verely  as  if  he  had  wronged  a  college  graduate,  whose 
home  was  on  Beacon  Street  or  the  Fifth  Avenue.  The 
South  is  not  strong  in  herself.  All  her  strength  con- 

O  .  £} 

government  lets  its  will  be  unmistakably  known.  That  is  the  chief  reason 
why  I  blame  our  Massachusetts  Senators  for  conferring  on  Colonel  Steven 
son  the  honor  of  Brigadier-Generalship  just  at  the  moment  he  defied  and 
denounced  the  policy  of  the  government.  Gross  insubordination  existed 
in  General  Hunter's  department,  —  arising  out  of  this  among  other  causes, 
—  the  soldiers,  taking  courage  from  the  lempcr  and  talk  of  their  officers, 
had  inflicted  terrible  outrages  on  the  negroes  there ;  at  the  North  we  were 
appealing  to  the  negro  to  enlist.  All  over  the  land  men  tried  to  penetrate 
the  real  purpose  of  government  in  respect  to  the  negro ;  —  its  friends,  in  or 
der  to  help  it ;  the  negro,  that  he  might  more  cheerfully  do  his  duty.  We 
were  calling,  in  our  peril,  on  a  wronged  race,  which  had  been  cheated  of  its 
rights  again  and  again  in  every  national  emergency,  and  begging  them  now 
to  trust  and  to  help  us,  obliged  to  tell  them  they  would  have  no  commis 
sions,  but  must  serve  under  white  officers.  "  Will  they  be  men  whose  hearts 
are  with  us  ?  "  we  were  constantly  asked  by  the  negro.  We  trembled  while 
we  answered,  "  We  hope  so,  we  believe  so."  At  this  crisis,  Colonel  Ste 
venson,  standing  at  Hunter's  side,  spits  on  the  government's  movements. 
It  was  a  moment  and  an  act  which  fixed  the  attention  of  the  nation.  It  was 
an  act  which,  so  far  as  one  man  could,  perilled  a  great  and  necessary  move 
ment.  It  deserved,  therefore,  severe  rebuke.  It  was  an  act  which  gave  the 
administration  the  very  best  opportunity  to  show'the  world  its  purpose  be 
yond  a  doubt.  One  right,  decisive  word  from  the  Senate,  and  no  officer  in 
the  service  would  afterwards  mistake  the  purpose  of  the  administration,  or 
dare  tor  misuse  a  negro.  That  word  was,  "  Colonel  Stevenson,  for  your 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY.          561 

sists  in  our  unwillingness  to  strike  ?  Why  this  unwill 
ingness  to  strike?  Because  we  do  not  yet  see  John 
Hancock  under  a  black  skin;  and  until  we  do  see  him, 
we  shall  never  wage  an  honest  and  utter  battle.  No 
man  who  does  not  grant  to  the  negro  his  just  place  is  fit 
to  be  enlisted  in  the  army  of  the  Union,  or  to  stand  in  its 
Senate,  if  that  Union  means  liberty ;  or  if  that  is  an  exag 
gerated  statement,  certainly  no  man  has  a  right  to  lead 
our  Senate  or  our  army  who  does  not  carry  that  idea  in 
his  heart.  [Applause.] 

Never  until  we  welcome  the  negro,  the  foreigner,  all 
races  as  equals,  and,  melted  together  in  a  common  nation 
ality,  hurl  them  all  at  despotism,  will  the  North  deserve 
triumph  or  earn  it  at  the  hands  of  a  just  God.  [Applause.] 

services  and  your  apology  we  overlook  yoiir  fault ;  but  stay  a  Colonel  till 
by  faithful  and  hearty  co-operation  in  the  new  movement  you  earn  the  na 
tion's  confidence,  and  let  every  officer  take  warning  by  your  fate."  Such 
was  the  message  we  urged  the  Senate  to  send  to  the  mutineer.  Instead  of 
that,  Massachusetts  Senators  reward  the  mutineer  to  conciliate  hunker  trea 
son. 

Thus  we  see  high-handed  defiance  of  the  government's  policy  enter  the 
Senate  a  Colonel  and  come  out  a  Brigadier.  What  rule  for  its  conduct 
could  the  army  take  from  such  an  example  ?  Spit  on  the  government, 
and  expect  promotion,  —  trample  on  the  negro,  and  be  sure  of  employ 
ment  !  Sigel,  Fremont,  Butler,  Hamilton,  Phelps,  and  a  host  of  others  idle, 
yet  a  negi'o-hater  promoted  on  the  plea  of  necessity  to  get  good  officers ! 
When  Mr.  Sumner  let  personal  feelings  lead  him  to  such  a  step,  he  betrayed 
the  negro.  If,-as  his  friends  allege,  he  allowed  Hunter  or  Burnside  —  one 
a  new  convert,  the  other  not  converted  at  all  —  to  dictate  such  a  course,  he 
forgot  that  we  chose  him,  not  them,  our  Senator,  and  trusted  him,  not  them, 
with  these  grave  powers.  But  I  have  the  best  authority  for  saying  that 
General  Hunter  never  asked  of  any  Senator  to  promote  Colonel  Stevenson. 
I  have  the  best  reason  for  believing  that  he,  like  myself,  looks  on  that  act  of 
the  Senate  as  a  grave  error.  This  is  only  one  case  of  a  single  and  soon-for 
gotten  individual,  but  it  tests  statesmen  as  much  as  large  matters.  Massa 
chusetts  Senators  must  reform  on  these  points  altogether  if  they  expect  trust 
in  future.  Let  them  see  to  it,  lest,  while  they  think  they  are  using  othen 
for  good  ends,  they  may  themselves  be  made  tools  for  base  ones. 
36 


562 


THE   STATE   OF  THE   COUNTRY. 


But  the  North  will  triumph.  I  hear  it.  Do  you  remem 
ber  in  that  disastrous  siege  in  India,  when  the  Scotch  girl 
raised  her  head  from  the  pallet  of  the  hospital,  and  said  to 
the  sickening  hearts  of  the  English,  "  I  hear  the  bagpipes, 
the  Campbells  are  coming,"  and  they  said,  "  Jessie,  it  is 
delirium."  "  No,  I  know  it ;  I  heard  it  far  off."  And  in 
an  hour  the  pibroch  burst  upon  their  glad  ears,  and  the 
banner  of  England  floated  in  triumph  over  their  heads. 
So  I  hear  in  the  dim  distance  the  first  notes  of  the  jubilee 
rising  from  the  hearts  of  the  millions.  .  Soon,  very  soon, 
you  shall  hear  it  at  the  gates  of  the  citadel,  and  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  shall  guarantee  liberty  forever  from  the  Lakes 
to  the  Gulf.  [Continued  applause.] 


THE  END. 


14 

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